Mulliner Nights

THE STORY:

The familiar voice of Mr. Mulliner is
again heard within the precincts of the
bar-parlour of the Anglers’ Rest. Seated
in his favourite chair and sipping his hot
Scotch and lemon, Mr. Mulliner enter-
tains the company in his own inimitable
way. The most trivial incident may
bring to his memory a story in which one
or more of his distinguished relations
played a prominent part, and once he
gets going there is no stopping him.

In this book we meet “the man who
learned to smile,” Webster, the Bishop
of Bongo-Bongo’s cat, and learn of
the aston^hing tiflFect 6f an overdose of
the ever-potent Buck-U-Uppo. Mulliner
Nights is a glorious riof of fun ; a book
to bring tears of joy to the eyes of every
reader.

MXJLLINER NIGHTS

MULLINER NIGHTS

by

P. G. WODEHOUSE

LONDON: HERBERT JLx, KINS

Published by
Herbert Jenkins Ltd.

3 Duke of York Street
London, S.W.l

Fifth printing, completing 4S,000 copies

Printed in Great Britain by

Wyman & Sons, Ltd., London, Fakenham and Reading

CONTENTS

I.

The Smile that Wins .

>•

PAG!

9

II.

The Story of Webster

•

41

III.

Cats Will be Cats .

•

75

IV.

The Knightly Quest of Mervyn

1 12

V.

The Voice from the Past

•

H 7

VI.

Open House

•

185

VII.

Best Seller

•

218

VIII.

Strychnine in the Soup ,

•

247

IX.

Gal.\ Night

•

280

MULLINER NIGHTS

All the characters in this book are purely imaginary
€ind have no relation U'hat soever to any living person

MULLINER NIGHTS

I

THE SMILE THAT WINS

T he conversation in the bar-parlour of the
Anglers’ Rest had turned to the subject
of the regrettably low standard of
morality prevalent among the nobility and
landed gentry of Great Britain.

Miss Postlethwaite, our erudite barmaid, had
brought the matter up by mentioning that in the
novelette which she was reading a viscount had
just thrown a family solicitor over a cliff.

“ Because he had found out his guilty secret,”
explained Miss Postlethwaite, polishing a glass a
little severely, for she was a good woman. “It
was his guilty secret this solicitor had found out,
so the viscount threw him over a cliff. I suppose,
if one did but know, that sort of thing is going
on all the time.”

Mr. Mulliner nodded gravel')fef^

“ So much so,” he agreed, “ mat I believe that
whenever a family solicitor is found in two or

A*

lO MULLINER NIGHTS

more pieces at the bottom of a cliff, the first thing
the Big Four at Scotland Yard do is make a
round-up of all the viscounts in the neighbour-
hood.”

“ Baronets are worse than viscounts,” said a
Pint of Stout vehemently. “ I was done down
by one only last month over the sale of a cow.”

“ Earls are worse than baronets,” insisted a
Whisky Sour. “ I could tell you something
about earls.”

“ How about O.B.E.’s ? ” demanded a Mild
and Bitter. “ If you ask me, O.B.E.’s want
watching, too.”

Mr. Mulliner sighed.

“ The fact is,” he said, “ reluctant though one
may be to admit it, the entire British aristocracy
is seamed and honeycombed with immorality.
I venture to assert that, if you took a pin and
jabbed it down anywhere in the pages of
Debrett’s Peerage, you would find it piercing the
name of someone who was going about the place
with a conscience as tender as a sunburned neck.
If anything were needed to prove my assertion,
the story of , my nephew, Adrian Mulliner, the
detective, would do it.”

“ I didn’t kdpw you had a nephew who was
a detective,” the Whisky Sour.

“ Oh, yes. He has retired now, but at one

THE SMILE THAT WINS II

time he was as keen an operator as anyone in
the profession. After leaving Oxford and trying
his hand at one or two' uncongenial tasks, he had
found his niche as a member of the firm of
Widgery and Boon, Investigators, of Albemarle
Street. And it was during his second year with
this old-established house that he met and loved
Lady MilHcent Shipton-Bellinger, younger
daughter of the fifth Earl of Brangbolton.

It was the Adventure of the Missing Sealyham
that brought the young couple together. From
the purely professional standpoint, my nephew
has never ranked this among his greatest triumphs
of ratiocination ; but, considering what it led to,
he might well, I think, be justified in regarding
it as the most important case of his career. What
happened was that he met the animal straying
in the park, deduced from the name and address
on its collar that it belonged to Lady Millicent
Shipton-Bellinger, of i8a. Upper Brook Street,
and took it thither at the conclusion of his stroll
and restored it.

“ Child’s-play ” is the phrase with which, if
you happen to allude to it, Adrian Mulliner
will always airily dismiss this particular investi-
gation ; but Lady Millicent could not have
displayed more admiration an#ft^thusiasm had
it been the supremest masterpiece of detective
work. She fawned on my nephew. She invited

12 MULLINER NIGHTS

him in to tea, consisting of buttered toast,
anchovy sandwiches and two kinds of cake ; and
at the conclusion of the meal they parted on
terms which, even at that early stage in their
acquaintance, were something warmer than
those of mere friendship.

Indeed, it is, my belief that the girl fell in love
with Adrian as instantaneously as he with her.
On him, it was her radiant blonde beauty that
exercised the spell. She, on her side, was
fascinated, I fancy, not only by the regularity
of his features, which, as is the case with all the
Mulliners, was considerable, but also by the
fact that he was dark and thin and wore an air
of inscrutable melancholy.

This, as a matter of fact, was due to the
troublesome attacks of dyspepsia from which he
had suffered since boyhood ; but to the girl it
naturally seemed evidence of a great and roman-
tic soul. Nobody, she felt, could look so grave
and sad, had he not hidden deeps in him.

One can see the thing from her point of view.
AH her life she had been accustomed to brainless
juveniles wh^ eked out their meagre eyesight
with monocles and, as far as conversation was
concerned, wett% spent force after they had asked
her if she had, the Academy or did she think
she w«>tdd prefer a glass of lemonade. The effect
on her of a dark, keen-eyed man like Adrian

THE SMILE THAT WINS IJ

Mulliner, who spoke well and easily of footprints,
psychology and the underworld, must have been
stupendous.

At any rate, their love ripened rapidly. It
could not have been two weeks after their first
meeting when Adrian, as he was giving her
lunch one day at the Senior Bloodstain, the
detectives’ club in Rupert Street, proposed and
was accepted. And for the next twenty-four
hours, one is safe in saying, there was in the
whole of London, including the outlying subur-
ban districts, no happier private investigator
than he.

Next day, however, when he again met Milli-
cent for lunch, he was disturbed to perceive on
her beautiful face an emotion which his trained
eye immediately recognized as anguish.

“ Oh, Adrian,” said the girl brokenly. “ The
worst has happened. My father refuses to hear
of our marrying. When I told him we were
engaged, he said ‘ Pooh ! ’ quite a number of
times, and added that he had never heard such
dashed nonsense in his life. You see, ever since
my Uncle Joe’s trouble in nineteen*twenty-eight,
father has had a horror of detectives.”

“ I don’t think I have met your Uncle
Joe.” ^ ^

“You will have the opportunity next year.
With the usual allowance for good conduct he

MULLINER NIGHTS

14

should be with us again about July. And there
is another thing.”

“ Not another ? ”

“ Yes. Do you know Sir Jasper Addleton,
O.B.E. ? ”

“ The financier ? ”

“ Father wants me to marry him. Isn’t it
awful ! ”

“ I have certainly heard more enjoyable bits
of news,” agreed Adrian. “ This wants a good
deal of careful thinking over.”

The process of thinking over his unfortunate
situation had the effect of rendering excessively
acute the pangs of Adrian Mulliner’s dyspepsia.
During the past two weeks the ecstasy of being
with Millicent and deducing that she loved him
had cau:|ed a complete cessation of the attacks ;
but now they began again, worse than ever. At
length, after a sleeples? night during which he
experienced all .the emotions of one who has
carelessly swallowed a family of scorpions, he
sought a specialist.

The specialist was one of. those keen, modern
minds who, .^sdflhi the outworn formultc of the
more conservatiye mass of the medical profession.
He examined Adrian carefully, then sat back in
his ch^^^ri^HSplK tips of his fingers touching.

“ Smile !»^e said.

“ Eh ? ” said Adrian.

THE SMILE THAT WINS

15

“ Smile, Mr. Mulliner.”

“ Did you say smile ? ”

“ That’s it. Smile.”

“ But,” Adrian pointed out, “ I’ve just lost
the only girl I ever loved.”

“ Well, that’s fine,” said the specialist, who was
a bachelor. “ Come on, now, if you please.
Start smiling.”

Adrian was a little bewildered.

“ Listen,” he said. “ What is all this about
smiling ? We started, if I recollect, talking about
my gastric juices. Now, in some mysterious
way, we seem to have got on to the subject of
smiles. How do you mean — smile ? I never
smile. I haven’t smiled since the buder tripped
over the spaniel and upset the melted butter on
my Aunt Elizabeth, when I was a boy of twelve.”

The specialist nodded.

“ Precisely. And that is why your digestive
organs trouble you. Dyspepsia,” he proceeded,
“ is now recognized by the progressive element
of the profession as purely ment^. We do not
treat it with drugs and medicines. - Happiness is
the only cure. Be gay, Mr.' Mulliner. Be
cheerful. And, if you can’t dp Aat, at any rate
smile. The mere exercise of risible muscles
is in itself beneficial. Go out^iK»|||f‘’^d make a
point, whenever you have a spare moment, of
smiling.”

l6 MULLINER NIGHTS

“ Like this ? ” said Adrian.

“ Wider than that.”

“ How about this ? ”

“ Better,” said the specialist, “ but still not
quite so elastic as one could desire. Naturally,
you need practice. We must expect the muscles
to work rustily for a while at their unaccustomed
task. No doubt things will brighten by and
by.”

He regarded Adrian thoughtfully.

“ Odd,” he said. “ A curious smile, yours,
Mr. Mulliner. It reminds me a little of the
Mona Lisa’s. It has the same underlying note
of the sardonic and the sinister. It virtually
amounts to a leer. Somehow it seems to convey
the suggestion that you know all. Fortunately,
my own life is an open book, for all to read,
and so I was not discommoded. But I think it
would be better if, for the present, you endeav-
oured not to smile at invalids or nervous per-
sons. Good morning, Mr. Mulliner. That will
be five guineas, precisely.”

On Adrian’s face, as he went off that afternoon
to perform the duties assigned to him by his firm,
there was no smile of any description. He shrank
from the brdeal^llfefore him. He had been told
off to guard the wedding-presents at a reception
in Grosvenor Square, and naturally anything to

THE SMILE THAT WINS 17

do with weddings was like a sword through his
heart. His face, as he patrolled the room where
the gifts were laid out, was drawn and forbidding.
Hitherto, at these functions, it had always been
his pride that nobody could tell that he was a
detective. To-day, a child could have recognized
his trade. He looked like Sherlock Holmes.

To the gay throng that surged about him he
paid little attention. Usually tense and alert
on occasions like this, he now found his mind
wandering. He mused sadly on Millicent. And
suddenly — the result, no doubt, of these gloomy
meditations, though a glass of wedding cham-
pagne may have contributed its mite — there
shot through him, starting at about the third
button of his neat waistcoat, a pang of dyspepsia
so keen that he felt the pressing necessity of doing
something about it immediately.

With a violent effort he contorted his features
into a smile. And, as he did so, a stout, bluff
man of middle age, with .a red face and a grey
moustache, who had been hovering near one of
the tables, turned and saw him.

“ Egad ! ” he muttered, paling.

Sir Sutton Hartley-Wesping, Bart. — ^for the
red-faced man was he — ^had had a pretty good
afternoon. Like all baronets who attend Society
wedding-receptions, he had been going round the
various tables since his arrival, pocketing here a

l8 MULLINER NIGHTS

fish-slice, there a jewelled egg-boiler, until now
he had taken on about all the cargo his tonnage
would warrant, and was thinking of strolling
off to the pawnbroker’s in the TEuston Road,
with whom he did most of his business. At the
sight of Adrian’s smile, he froze where he stood,
appalled.

We have seen what the specialist thought of
Adrian’s smile. Even to him, a man of clear
and limpid conscience, it had seemed sardonic
and sinister. We can picture, then, the effect
it must have had on Sir Sutton Hartley- Wesping.

At all costs, he felt, he must conciliate this
leering man. Swiftly removing from his pockets
a diamond necklace, five fish-slices, ten cigarette-
lighters and a couple of egg-boilers, he placed
them on the table and came over to Adrian with
a nervous little laugh.

“ How are you, my dear fellow ? ” he said.

Adrian said that he was quite well. And so,
indeed, he was. The specialist’s recipe had
worked like magic. He was mildly surprised
at finding bjmself so cord^illy addressed by a
man whom tie .did not remember ever having
seen before, but. he attributed this to the magnetic
charm of his. Jei^onality.

“ That*r said the Baronet heartily.

“ That’s cajil^. That’s splendid. Er — by the
way — fancied I saw you smile just now.’*

THE SMILE THAT WINS I9

“ Yes,” said Adrian. “ I did smile. You
sec ”

“ Of course I see. Of course, my dear fellow.
You detected the joke I was playing on our good
hostess, and you were amused because you
understood that there is no animus, no arriere-
pensee^ behind these little practical pleasantries
— ^nothing but good, clean fun, at which nobody
would have laughed more heartily than herself.
And now, what are you doing this week-end, my
dear old chap ? Would you care to run down to
my place in Sussex ? ”

“ Very kind of you,” began Adrian doubtfully.
He was not quite sure that he was in the mood for
strange week-ends.

“ Here is my card, then. I shall expect you
on Friday. Quite a small party. Lord Brang-
bolton. Sir Jasper Addleton, and a few more.
Just loafing about, you know, and a spot of bridge
at night. Splendid. Capital. Sec you, then,
on Friday.”

And, carelessly dropping another egg-boiler on

the table as he pasised, Sir Sutton ^disappeared.

. ' * . "

Any doubts which Adrian, have enter-

tained as to accepting the Baronet’s invitation
had vanished as he heard tKe ^Baates of his
fellow-guests. It always interests «^fianc<i to meet
his fiancee’s father and his fiancee’s prospective

20

MULLINER NIGHTS

fianc^. For the first time since Millicent had
told him the bad news, Adrian became almost
cheerful. If, he felt, this baronet had taken such
a tremendous fancy to him at firtt sight, why
might it not happen that Lord Brangbolton
would be equally drawn to him — to the extent,
in fact, of overlooking his profession and welcom-
ing him as a son-in-law ?

He packed, on the Friday, with what was to all
intents and purposes a light heart.

A fortunate chance at the very outset of his
expedition increased Adrian’s optimism. It made
him feel that Fate was fighting on his side. As
he walked down the platform of Victoria Station,
looking for an empty compartment in the train
which ,was to take him to his destination, he
perceived a tall, aristocratic old gentleman being
assisted into a first-class carriage by a man of
butlerine aspect. And in the latter he recog-
nized the servitor who had admitted him to
I 8a, Upper Brook Street, when he visited the
house after solving the riddle of the missing
Sealyham. Obviously, then, the white-haired,
dignified passei^er could be none other than
Lord Brangbi^ton.' And Adrian felt that if on
a long train 'feurhey he failed to ingratiate himself
with the oldi^toster, he had vastly mistaken his
amiability and winning fascination of manner.

THE SMILE THAT WINS 21

He leaped in, accordingly, as the train began
to move, and the Earl, glancing up from his
paper, jerked a thumb at the door.

“ Get out, blast you ! ” he said, “ Full up.”

As the compartment was empty but for them-
selves, Adrian made no move to comply with the
request. Indeed, to alight now, to such an
extent had the train gathered speed, would have
been impossible. Instead, he spoke cordially.

“ Lord Brangbolton, I believe ? ”

“ Go to hell,” said his lordship.

“ I fancy we are to be fellow-guests at Wesping
Hall this week-end.”

“ What ofit?”

“ I just mentioned it.”

“ Oh ? ” said Lord Brangbolton. “ Well, since
you’re here, how about a little flutter ? ”

As is customary with men of his social position,
Millicent’s father always travelled with a pack
of cards. Being gifted by nature with consider-
able manual dexterity, he usually managed to
do well with these on race-trains.

“ Ever played Persian Monarchs ? ” he asked,
shuffling,

“ I think not,” said Adrian.

“ Quite simple,” said Lord Branj^bolton. “ You
just bet a quid or whatever it inay^be that you
can cut a higher card than the fellow, and,
if you do, you win, and, if you don’t, you don’t.”

22

MULLINER NIGHTS

Adrian said it sounded a little like Blind Hooky.

“ It is like Blind Hooky,” said Lord Brang-
bolton. “ Very like Blind Hooky. In fact, if
you can play Blind Hooky, you can play Persian
Monarchs.”

By the time they alighted at Wesping Parva
Adrian was twenty pounds on the wrong side of
the ledger. The fact, however, did not prey
upon his mind. On the contrary, he was well
satisfied with the progress of events. Elated with
his winnings, the old Earl had become positively
cordial, and Adrian resolved to press his advan-
tage home at the earliest opportunity.

Arrived at Wesping Hall, accordingly, he did
not delay. Shortly after the sounding of the
dressing-gong he made his way to Lord Brang-
bolton’s room and found him in his bath.

“ Might I have a word with you. Lord Brang-
bolton ? ” he said.

“ You can do more than that,” replied the
other, with marked amiability. “ You can help
me find the soap.”

“ Have you lost the soap ? ”

“ Yes. Had it a minute ago, and now it’s gone.”

“ Strange,” s^d Adrian.

“Very sti^thge,** agreed Lord Brangbolton.
“ Makes a l^ow fhink a bit, that sort of thing
happening. i<|Ml|»4>wn soap, too. Brought it with
me.”

THE SMILE THAT WINS 23

Adrian considered.

Tell me exactly what occurred,” he said.
“ In your own words. And tell me everything,
please, for one never knows when the smallest
detail may not be important.”

His companion marshalled his thoughts.

“ My name,” he began, “is Reginald Alexander
Montacute James Bramfylde Tregennis Shipton-
Bellinger, fifth Earl of Brangbolton. On the
sixteenth of the present month — to-day, in fact
— I journeyed to the house of my friend Sir
Sutton Hartley-Wesping, Bart. — here, in short —
with the purpose of spending the week-end there.
Knowing that Sir Sutton likes to have his guests
sweet and fresh about the place, I decided to
take a bath before dinner. I unpacked my soap
and in a short space of time had lathered myself
thoroughly from the neck upwards. And then,
just as I was about to get at my right leg, what
should I find but that the soap had disappeared.
Nasty shock it gave me, I can tell you.”

Adrian had listened to this narrative with
the closest attention. Ccrtaiply the problem
appeared to present several points of interest.

“ It looks like an inside job,” Jic said thought-
fully. “ It could scarcely be the #ork of a gang.
You would have noticed a gang, ^ust give me
the facts briefly once again, if yoli^lease.”

“ Well, I was here, in the bath', as it might be,

MULLINER NIGHTS

*4

and the soap was here — between my hands, as
it were. Next moment it was gone.”

“ Are you sure you have omitted nothing ? ”
Lord Brangbolton reflected.

“ Well, I was singing, of course.”

A tense look came into Adrian’s face.

“ Singing what ? ”

“ ‘ Sonny boy.’ ”

Adrian’s face cleared.

“ As I suspected,” he said, with satisfaction.
“ Precisely as I had supposed. I wonder if you
are aware. Lord Brangbolton, that in the singing
of that particular song the muscles unconsciously
contract as you come to the final ‘ boy ’ ? Thus
— ‘ I still have you, sonny BOY.’ You observe ?
It would be impossible for anyone, rendering the
number with the proper gusto, not to force his
hands together at this point, assuming that they
were in anything like close juxtaposition. And
if there were any slippery object between them,
such as a piece of soap, it would inevitably shoot
sharply upwards and fall ” — he scanned the room
keenly — “ outside the bath on the mat. As,
indeed,” he concluded, picking up the missing
object and restoring it to its proprietor, “it did.”
Lord Brai^gBolton gaped.

“ Well, my buttons,” he cried, “ if that
isn’t the smjd^py>it of work I’ve seen in a month
of Sundays*! "

THE SMILE THAT WINS ly

“ Elementary,” said Adrian with a shrug.

“ You ought to be a detective.”

Adrian took the cue.

“ I am a detective,” he said. “ My name is
Alulliner. Adrian Mulliner, Investigator.”

For an instant the words did not appear to
have made any impression. The aged peer
continued to beam through the soap-suds. Then
suddenly his geniality vanished with an ominous
swiftness.

“ Mulliner ? Did you say Mulliner ? ”

“ I did.”

“ You aren’t by any chance the feller ”

“ . . . who loves your daughter Millicent with
a fervour he cannot begin to express ? Yes,
Lord Brangbolton, I am. And I am hoping that
I may receive your consent to the match.”

A hideous scowl had darkened the Earl’s brow.
His fingers, which were grasping a loofah,
tightened convulsively.

“ Oh ? ” he said. “ You are, are you ? You
imagine, do you, that I propose to welcome a
blighted footprint-and-cigar-ash inspector into
my family ? It is your idea, is it, that I shall
acquiesce in the union of my ji|aughter to a
dashed feller who goes about the pjlace on his
hands and knees with a magnifyijD(ff-glass, picking
up small objects and puttin^t carefully

away in his pocket-book ? I seem to see myself '

26

MULLINER NIGHTS

Why, rather than permit Millicent to marry a
bally detective ...”

“ What is your objection to detectives ? ”

“ Never you mind what’s my objection to
detectives. Marry my daughter, indeed ! I
like your infernal cheek. Why, you couldn’t
keep her in lipsticks.”

Adrian preserved his dignity.

“ I admit tliat my services are not so amply
remunerated as I could wish, but the firm hint
at a rise next Christmas. . .

“ Tchah ! ” said Lord Brangbolton. “ Pshaw!
If you are interested in my daughter’s matri-
monial arrangements, she is going, as soon as
he gets through with this Bramah- Yamah Gold
Mines flotation of his, to marry my old friend
Jasper Addleton. As for you, Mr. Mulliner, I
have only two words to say to you. One is
POP, the other is OFF. And do it now.”

Adrian sighed. He saw that it would be
hopeless to endeavour to argue with the haughty
old man in his present mood.

“ So be it, Lord Brangbolton,” he said quietly.

And, affecting hot to notice the nail-brush
which struck smardy on the back of the
head, he lefifthe roohi.

The food«#B^^nk provided for his guests by
Sir Sutton Harfley-Wesping at the dinner which

THE SMILE THAT WINS VJ

' began some half-hour later were all that the
veriest gourmet could have desired ; but Adrian
gulped them down, scarcely tasting them. His
whole attention was riveted on Sir Jasper
Addleton, who sat immediately opposite him.

And the more he examined Sir Jasper, the
more revolting seemed the idea of his marrying
the girl he loved.

Of course, an ardent young fellow inspecting
a man who is going to marry the girl he loves is
always a stern critic. In the peculiar circum-
stances Adrian would, no doubt, have looked
askance at a John Barrymore or a Ronald
Colman. But, in the case of Sir Jasper, it
must be admitted that he had quite reasonable
grounds for his disapproval.

In the first place, there was enough of the
financier to make two financiers. It was as if
Nature, planning a financier, had said to itself;
“ We will do this thing well. We will not skimp,”
with the result that, becoming too enthusiastic, it
had overdone it. And then, in addition to being
fat, he was also bald and goggle-eyed. And, if
you overlooked his baldness and the goggly
protuberance of his eyes, you cq}}!^ not get away
from the fact that he was ’weU advanced in
years. Such a man, felt Adrian, would have
been better employed in pric^!^ burial-lots in
Kensal Green Cemetery than in forcing his

28

MULLINER NIGHTS

unwelcome attentions on a sweet young girl like
Millicent : and as soon as the meal was concluded
he approached him with cold abhorrence.

“ A word with you,” he said, arid led him out
on to the terrace.

The O.B.E., as he followed him into the cool
night air, seemed surprised and a little uneasy.
He had noticed Adrian scrutinizing him closely
across the dinner table, and if there is one thing
a financier who has just put out a prospectus of a
gold mine dislikes, it is to be scrutinized closely.

“ What do you want ? ” he asked nervously.

Adrian gave him a cold glance.

“ Do you ever look in a mirror. Sir Jasper ? ”
he asked curtly.

“ Frequently,” replied the financier, puzzled.

“ Do you ever weigh yourself? ”

“ Often.”

“ Do you ever listen while your tailor is toiling
round you with the tape-measure and calling
out the score to his assistant ? ”

“ I do.”

“ Then,” said Adrian, “ and I speak in the
kindest spirit of disinterested friendship, you
must have realized that you are an overfed old
bohunkus. Ani how you ever got the idea that
you werc^rfif^ate for Lady Millicent Shipton-
BellingerTraniHiljeats me. Surely it must have
occurred to ftu what a priceless ass you will

tHE SMILE THAT WINS 29

look, walking up the aisle with that young and
lovely girl at your side? People will mistake
you for an elderly uncle taking his niece to the
Zoo.”

The O.B.E. bridled.

“ Ho ! ” he said.

“ It is no use saying ‘ Ho ! ’ ” said Adrian.
“ You can’t get out of it with any ‘ Ho’s.’ When
all the talk and argument have died away, the
fact remains that, millionaire though you be,
you are a nasty-looking, fat, senile millionaire.
If I were you, I should give the whole thing a miss.
What do you want to get married for, anyway ?
You are much happier as you arc. Besides,
think of the risks of a financier’s life. Nice it
would be for that sweet girl suddenly to get a
wire from you telling her not to wait dinner for
you as you had just started a seven-year stretch
at Dartmoor ! ”

An angry retort had been trembling on Sir
Jasper’s lips during the early portion of this
speech, but at these concluding words it died
unspoken. He blenched visibly, and stared at
the speaker with undisguised apprehension.

“ What do you mean ? ” he faltered.

“ Never mind,” said Adrian."

He had spoken, of course, purely at a venture,
basing his remarks on the fact 'Aat nearly all
O.B.E.’s who dabble in High Finance go to

MULUNER NIGHTS

30

prison sooner or later. Of Sir Jasper’s actual
affairs he knew nothing.

“ Hey, listen ! ” said the financier.

But Adrian did not hear him. 1 have men-
tioned that during dinner, preoccupied with his
thoughts, he had bolted his food. Nature now
took its toll. An acute spasm suddenly ran
through him, and with a brief “ Ouch ! ” of
pain he doubled up and began to walk round in
circles.

Sir Jasper clicked his tongue impatiently.

“ This is no time for doing the Astaire pom-pom
dance,” he said sharply. “Tell me what you
meant by that stuff you were talking about
prison.”

Adrian had straightened himself. In the light
of the moon which flooded the terrace with its
silver oeams, his clean-cut face was plainly
visible. And with a shiver of apprehension
Sir Jasper saw that it wore a sardonic, sinister
smile — a smile which, it struck him, was virtually
tantamount to a leer.

I have spoken of the dislike financiers have for
being scrutinized closely. Still more vehemently
do they object to being leered at. Sir Jasper
reeled, and about to press his question when
Adrian, still smiling, tottered off into the shadows
and was lost t&^ght.

The hnandfl* hurried into the smoking-room.

THE SMILE THAT WINS 3I

where he knew there would be the materials for
a stiff drink. A stiff drink was what he felt an
imperious need of at the moment. He tried to
tell himself that that smile could not really have
had the inner meaning which he had read into
it ; but he was still quivering nervously as he
entered the smoking-room.

As he opened the door, the sound of an angry
voice smote his ears. He recognized it as Lord
Brangbolton’s,

“ I call it dashed low,” his lordship was saying
in his high-pitched tenor.

Sir Jasper gazed in bewilderment. His host,
Sir Sutton Hartley- Wesping, was standing backed
against the wall, and Lord Brangbolton, tapping
him on the shirt-front with a piston-like fore-
finger, was plainly in the process of giving him
a thorough ticking off.

“ What’s the matter ? ” asked the financier.

“ I’ll tell you what’s the matter,” cried Lord
Brangbolton. “ This hound here has got down a
detective to watch his guests. A dashed fellow
named Mulliner. So much,” he said bitterly,
“ for our boasted English hospitality. Egad ! ”
he went on, still tapping the barpnet round and
about the diamond solitaire. ''Icall it thoroughly
low. If I have a few of my society chums down
to my little place for a visit, natarally I chain up
the hair-brushes and tell the buttex to count the

MULLIHER NIGHTS

3 *

spoons every night, but I’d never dream of going so
far as to employ beastly detectives. One has one’s
code. Noblesse, I mean to say, oblige, what, what ? ’ ’
“ But, listen,” pleaded the Bardhet. “ I keep
telling you. I had to invite the fellow here. I
thought that if he had eaten my bread and salt,
he would not expose me.”

“ How do you mean, expose you ? ”

Sir Sutton coughed.

“ Oh, it was nothing. The merest trifle.
Still, the man undoubtedly could have made
things unpleasant for me, if he had wished. So,
when I looked up and saw him smiling at me in

that frightful sardonic, knowing way ”

Sir Jasper Addleton uttered a sharp cry.

“ Smiling ! ” He gulped. “ Did you say
smiling ? ”

“ Smiling,” said the Baronet, “ is right. It
was one of those smiles that seem to go clean
through you and light up all your inner being
as if with a searchlight.”

Sir Jasper gulped again.

“ Is this fellow — this smiler fellow — is he a
tall, dark, thin chap ? ”

“ That’s right. He sat opposite you at dinner.”
“ And he*« 1^ detective ? ”

“ He is,” said Lord Brangbolton. “ As shrewd
and smart a^doitective,” he added grudgingly.
“ as I ever iMct in my life. The way he foxmcl

THE SMILE THAT WINS 33

that soap . . . Feller struck me as having some
sort of a sixth sense, if you know what I mean,
dash and curse him. I hate detectives,” he said
with a shiver. “ They give me the creeps. This
one wants to marry my daughter, Millicent, of all
the dashed nerve ! ”

“ See you later,” said Sir Jasper. And with a
single bound he was out of the room and on his
way to the terrace. There was, he felt, no time to
waste. His florid face, as he galloped along, was
twisted and ashen. With one hand he drew
from his inside pocket a cheque-book, with the
other from his trouser-pocket a fountain-pen.

Adrian, when the financier found him, was
feeling a good deal better. He blessed the day
when he had sought the specialist’s advice. There
was no doubt about it, he felt, the man knew his
business. Smiling might make the cheek-muscles
ache, but it undoubtedly did the trick as regarded
the pangs of dyspepsia.

For a brief while before Sir Jasper burst onto
the terrace, waving fountain-pen and cheque-
book, Adrian had been giving his face a rest.
But now, the pain in his cheeks having abated,
he deemed it prudent to resume the treatment.
And so it came about that the iinanicier, hurrying
towards him, was met with a smite so meaning,
so suggestive, that he stopped iB ]bis tracks and
for a moment could not speak.

MULLINER NIGHTS

34

** Oh, there you are ! ” he said, recovering at
length. “Might I have a word with you in
private, Mr. Mulliner ? ”

Adrian nodded, beaming. The' financier took
him by the coat-sleeve and led him across the
terrace. He was breathing a little stertorously.

“ I’ve been thinking things over,” he said,
“ and I’ve come to the conclusion that you were
right.”

“ Right ? ” said Adrian.

“ About me marrying. It wouldn’t do.”

“ No ? ”

“ Positively not. Absurd. I can see it now.
I’m too old for the girl.”

“ Yes.”

“ Too bald.”

“ Exactly.”

“ And too fat.”

“ Much too fat,” agreed Adrian. This sudden
change of heart puzzled him, but none the less
the other’s words were as music to his ears. Every
syllable the O.B.E. had spoken had caused his
heart to leap within him like a young lamb in
springtime, and his mouth curved in a smile.

Sir Jasper, seeing it, shied like a frightened
horse. He patted Adrian’s arm feverishly.

“ So I haM!% decided,” he said, " to take your
advice and-r^ICciJ recall your expression — give
the thing a nnra.”

THE SMILE THAT WINS 3J

“ You couldn’t do better,” said Adrian heartily.

“ Now, if I were to remain in England in these
circumstances,” proceeded Sir Jasper, “ there
might be unpleasantness. So I propose to go
quietly away at once to some remote spot — say.
South America. Don’t you think I am right ? ”
he asked, giving the cheque-book a twitch.

Quite right,” said Adrian.

“ You won’t mention this little plan of mine to
anyone ? You will keep it as just a secret be-
tween ourselves ? If, for instance, any of your
cronies at Scotland Yard should express curiosity
as to my whereabouts, you will plead ignorance? ”

“ Certainly.”

“ Capital ! ” said Sir Jasper, relieved. “ And
there is one other thing. I gather from Brang-
bolton that you are anxious to marry Lady
Millicent yourself. And, as by the time of the
wedding I shall doubtless be in — well, Callao is a
spot that suggests itself off-hand, I would like
to give you my little wedding-present now.”

He scribbled hastily in his cheque-book, tore
out a page and handed it to Adriatt. '

“ Remember ! ” he said. “ Not a word to
anyone ! ”

“ Quite,” said Adrian.

He watched the financier dlHippear in the
direction of the garage, regrettki^ that he could
have misjudged a man who so evidently had much

MULLINER NIGHTS

36

good in him. Presently the sound of a motor
engine announced that the other was on his way.
Feeling that one obstacle, at le^t, between
himself and his happiness had been removed,
Adrian strolled indoors to see what the rest of
the party were doing.

It was a quiet, peaceful scene that met his eyes
as he wandered into the library. Overruling
the request of some of the members of the com-
pany for a rubber of bridge. Lord Brangbolton
had gathered them together at a small table
and was initiating them into his favourite game
of Persian Monarchs.

“ It’s perfectly simple, dash it,” he was saying.
“ You just take the pack and cut. You bet —
let us say ten pounds — that you will cut a higher
card than the feller you’re cutting against. And,
if you do, you win, dash it. ' And, if you don’t,
the other dashed feller wins.^ .Qpitc clear, what ? ”

Somebody said that if sPunded a little like
Blind Hooky.

“ It is like Blind Hooky,” said Lord Brang-
bolton. “ ypry like Blind Hooky. In fact, if
you can play Blind Hooky, you can play Persian
Monarchs.”

They settled down to their game, and Adrian
wandered abotit the room, endeavouring to still
the riot of eaiijABn which his recent interview
with Sir Jasptif Addleton had aroused in his

THE SMILE THAT WINS 37

bosom. All that remained for him to do now, he
reflected, was by some means or other to remove
the existing prejudice against him from Lord
Brangbolton’s mind.

It would not be easy, of course. To begin
with, there was the matter of his straitened
means.

He suddenly remembered that he had not yet
looked at the cheque which the financier had
handed him. He pulled it out of his pocket.

And, having glanced at it, Adrian Mulliner
swayed like a poplar in a storm.

Just what he had expected, he could not have
said. A fiver, possibly. At the most, a tenner.
Just a trifling gift, he had imagined, with which
to buy himself a cigarette-lighter, a fish-slice, or
an egg-boiler. ,

The cheque wa^ fdt a hundred thousand pounds.

So great waff me.^hpck that, as Adrian caught
sight of himsdf in tl^e*riairror opposite to which
he was standing, he sjcarcely recognized the face
in the glass. He'seemeil to be seeing it through a
mist. Then the mist cleared, an«i he saw not
only his own face clearly, but also that of Lord
Brangbolton, who was in the act of cutting
against his left-hand neighbour, Lord Knubble
ofKnopp.

And, as he thought of the this sudden

accession of wealth must surely hkVc on the father

MULLINER NIGHTS

38

of the girl he loved, there came into Adrian’s face
a sudden, swift smile.

And simultaneously from behind him he heard
a gasping exclamation, and, looking in the mir-
ror, he met Lord Brangbolton’s eyes. Always
a little prominent, they were now almost prawn-
like in their convexity.

Lord Knubble of Knopp had produced a bank-
note from his pocket and was pushing it along
the table.

“ Another ace ! ” he exclaimed. “ Well I’m
dashed ! ”

Lord Brangbolton had risen from his chair.

“ Excuse me,” he said in a strange, croaking
voice. “ I just want to have a little chat with my
friend, my dear old friend, Mulliner here.
Might I have a word in private with you, Mr.
Mulliner ? ”

There was silence between the two men until
they had reached a corner* of the terrace out of
earshot of the library window. Then Lord
Brangbolton cleared his throat.

“ Mullin^t:,^ he began, “ or, rather — what is
your Christiaii name ? ”

“ Adrian.”

“ Adrian, my dear fellow,” said Lord Brang-
bolton, “ my memory is not what it should be,
but 1 seem to liave a distinct recollection that,
when I was in my bath before dinner, you said

THE SMILE THAT WINS 39

something about wanting to marry my daughter
Millicent.”

“ I did,” replied Adrian. “ And, if your
objections to me as a suitor were mainly financial,
let me assure you that, since we last spoke, I
have become a wealthy man.”

“ I never had any objections to you, Adrian,
financial or otherwise,” said Lord Brangbolton,
patting his arm affectionately. “ I have always
felt that the man my daughter married ought
to be a fine, warm-hearted young fellow like you.
For you, Adrian,” he proceeded, “ are essentially
warm-hearted. You would never dream of
distressing a father-in-law by mentioning any . . .
any little . . . well, in short, I saw from your
smile in there that you had noticed that I was
introducing into that game of Blind Hooky — or,
rather, Persian Monarchs — certain little — shall I
say variations, designed to give it additional
interest and excitement, and I feel sure that you
would scorn to embarrass a father-in-law by. . . .
Well, to cut a long story short, my boy, take
Millicent and with her a father’s blessing.”

He extended his hand. Adrian clasped it
warmly.

“ I am the happiest man in the world,” he said,
smiling.

Lord Brangbolton winced.

“ Do you mind not doing that ? ” he said.

<10 MULLINER NIGHTS

“ I only smiled,” said Adrian.

“ I know,” said Lord Brangbolton.

Little remains to be told. Adrian and Milli-
cent were married three months later at a fashion-
able West End church. All Society was there.
The presents were both numerous and costly,
and the bride looked charming. The service
was conducted by the Very Reverend the Dean
of Bittlesham.

It was in the vestry afterwards, as Adrian
looked at Millicent and seemed to realize for
the first time that all his troubles were over and
that this lovely girl was indeed his, for better or
worse, that a full sense of his happiness swept over
the young man.

All through the ceremony he had been grave,
as befitted a man at the most serious point of his
career. But now, fizzing as if with some spiritual
yeast, he clasped her in his arms and over her
shoulder his face broke into a quick smile.

He found himself looking into the eyes of the
Dean of Bitti^ham. A moment later he felt
a tap on his arm.

“ Might I have a word with you in private,
Mr. Mulliner ? ” smd the Dean in a low voice.

II

c

THE STORY OF WEBSTER

^ATS are not dogs ! ”

There is only one place where you
can hear good things like that thrown
off quite casually in the general run of conversa-
tion, and that is the bar-parlour of the Anglers’
Rest. It was there, as we sat grouped about the
fire, that a thoughtful Pint of Bitter had made
the statement just recorded.

Although the talk up to this point had been
dealing with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity,
we readily adjusted our minds to cope with the
new topic. Regular attendance at the nightly
sessions over which Mr. Mulliner presides with
such unfailing dignity and geniality tends to
produce mental nimbleness. In our little circle
I have known an argument on the Final
Destination of the Soul to change inside forty
seconds into one concerning the best method of
preserving the juiciness of bacon fat.

“ Cats,” proceeded the Pint of Bitter, “ are
selfish. A man waits on a cat hand and foot

MULLINER NIGHTS

42

for weeks, humouring its lightest whim, and then
it goes and leaves him flat because it has found
a place down the road where the fish is more
frequent.”

“ What I*ve got against cats,” said a Lemon
Sour, speaking feelingly, as one brooding on a
private grievance, “ is their unreliability. They
lack candour and are not square shooters. You
get your cat and you call him Thomas or George,
as the case may be. So far, so good. Then one
morning you wake up and find six kittens in
the hat-box and you have to reopen the whole
matter, approaching it from an entirely different
angle.”

“ If you want to know what’s the trouble with
cats,” said a red-faced man with glassy eyes,
who had been rapping on the table for his fourth
whisky, “ they’ve got no tact. That’s what’s the
trouble with them. I remember a friend of
mine had a cat. Made quite a pet of that cat,
he did. And what occurred ? What was the
outcome ? One night he came home rather
late and wgs feeling for the keyhole with his
corkscrew ; smd, believe me or not, his cat
selected that precise moment to jump on the back
of his neck out of a tree. No tact.”

Mr. Mulliner shook his head.

“ I grant you ali^liis,” he said, “ but still, in
my opinion, you have not got quite to the root

THE STORY OF WEBSTER 45

of the matter. The real objection to the great
majority of cats is their insufferable air of
superiority. Cats, as a class, have never com-
pletely got over the snootiness caused by the fact
that in Ancient Egypt they were worshipped as
gods. This makes them too prone to set them-
selves up as critics and censors of the frail and
errkig human beings whose lot they share.
They stare rebukingly. They view with concern.
And on a sensitive man this often has the worst
effects, inducing an inferiority complex of the
gravest kind. It is odd that the conversation
should have taken this turn,” said Mr. Mulliner,
sipping his hot Scotch and lemon, “ for I was
thinking only this afternoon of the rather strange
case of my cousin Edward’s son, Lancelot.”

“ I knew a cat ” began a Small Bass.

My cousin Edward’s son, Lancelot (said Mr.
Mulliner) was, at "^e time of which I speak, a
comely youth of some twenty-five summers.
Orphaned at an early age, he had been brought
up in the home of his Uncle Theodore, the
saintly Dean of Bolsover ; and it was a great
shock to that good man when Lancelot, on
attaining his majority, wrote from London to
inform him that he had taken a studio in Bott
Street, Chelsea, and proposed to remain in the
metropolis and become an artist.

44 MULLINER NIGHTS

The Dean’s opinion of artists was low. As a
prominent member of the Bolsover Watch
Committee, it had recently been his distasteful
duty to be present at a private showing of the
super-super-film, “ Palettes of Passion ” ; and he
replied to his nephew’s communication with a
vibrant letter in which he emphasized the
grievous pain it gave him to think that one of his
flesh and blood should deliberately be embarking
on a career which must inevitably lead sooner or
later to the painting of Russian princesses lying
on divans in the semi-nude with their arms
round tame jaguars. He urged Lancelot to
return and become a curate while there was yet
time.

But Lancelot was firm. He deplored the rift
between himself and a relative whom he had
always respected ; but he was dashed if he meant
to go back to an environment where his individ-
uality had been stifled and his soul confined in
chains. And for four years there was silence
between uncle and nephew.

During thete years Lancelot had made progress
in his chosen 'profession. At the time at which
this story opens, his prospects seemed bright.
He was painting the portrait of Brenda, only
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. B. B. Carberry-
Pirbright, of ii, Maxton Square, South
Kensington, which meant thirty pounds in his

THE STORY OF WEBSTER 45

sock on delivery. He had learned to cook eggs
and bacon. He had practically mastered the
ukulele. And, in addition, he was engaged to
be married to a fearless young vers libre poetess
of the name of Gladys Bingley, better known as
The Sweet Singer of Garbidge Mews, Fulham —
a charming girl who looked like a pen-wiper.

It seemed to Lancelot that life was very full
and beautiful. He lived joyously in the present,
giving no thought to the past.

But how true it is that the past is inextricably
mixed up with the present and that we can
never tell when it may not spring some delayed
bomb beneath our feet. One afternoon, as he
sat making a few small alterations in the portrait
of Brenda Carberry-Pirbright, his fiancee
entered.

He had been expecting her to call, for to-day
she was going off for a three weeks’ holiday to
the South of France, and she had promised to
look in on her way to the station. He laid down
his brush and gazed at her with a yearning
affection, thinking for the thousandth time how
he worshipped every spot of ink 'on her nose.
Standing there in the doorway with her bobbed
hair sticking out in every direction like a
golliwog’s she made a picture that seemed to
speak to his very depths.

“ Hullo, Reptile ! ” he said lovingly.

46 MULLINER NIGHTS

“ What ho, Worm ! ” said Gladys, maidenly
devotion shining through the monocle which
she wore in her left eye. “ I can stay just half
an hour.”

“ Oh, well, half an hour soon passes,” said
Lancelot. “ What’s that you’ve got there ? ”

“ A letter, ass. What did you think it was ? ”
“ Where did you get it ? ”

“ I found the postman outside,”

Lancelot took the envelope from her and
examined it.

“ Gosh ! ” he said.

“ What’s the matter ? ”

“ It’s from my Uncle Theodore.”

“ I didn’t know you had an Uncle Theodore.”
“ Of course I have. I’ve had him for years.”

“ What’s he writing to you about ? ”

“ If you’ll kindly keep quiet for two seconds,
if you know how,” said Lancelot, “ I’ll tell you.”

And in a clear voice which, like that of all the
Mulliners, however distant from the main
branch, was beautifully modulated, he read as
follows :

“ The Deanery,

“ Bolsover,

“ Wilts.

“ My Dear Lancelot,

“ As you have, no doubt, already
learned from your Church TimeSy I have been

THE STORY OF WEBSTER 47

offered and have accepted the vacant Bishopric
of Bongo-Bongo in West Africa. I sail immedi-
ately to take up my new duties, which I trust
will be blessed.

In these circumstances, it becomes necessary
for me to find a good home for my cat
Webster. It is, alas, out of the question that
he should accompany me, as the rigours of the
climate and the lack of essential comforts might
well sap a constitution which has never been
robust.

“ I am dispatching him, therefore, to your
address, my dear boy, in a straw-lined hamper,
in the full confidence that you will prove a
kindly and conscientious host.

“ With cordial good wishes,

“ Your affectionate uncle,

“ Theodore Bongo-Bongo.”

For some moments after he had finished reading
this communication, a thoughtful silence prevailed
in the studio. Finally Gladys spoke.

“ Of all the nerve ! ” she said. “ I wouldn’t do
it.”

“ Why not ? ”

“ What do you want with a cat ? ”

Lancelot reflected.

“ It is true,” he said, “ that, given a free hand,
I would prefer not to have my studio turned

MULLINER NIGHTS

48

into a cattery or cat-bin. But consider the
special circumstances. Relations between Uncle
Theodore and self have for the last few years
been a bit strained. In fact, you might say we
had definitely parted brass-rags. It looks to me
as if he were coming round. I should describe
this letter as more or less what you might call an
olive-branch. If I lush this cat up satisfactorily,
shall I not be in a position later on to make a
swift touch ? ”

“ He is rich, this bean?” said Gladys, interested.

“ Extremely.”

“ Then,” said Gladys, “ consider my objections
withdrawn. A good stout cheque from a grateful
cat-fancier would undoubtedly come in very
handy. We might be able to get married this
year.”

“ Exactly,” said Lancelot. “ A pretty loath-
some prospect, of course, but still, as we’ve
arranged to do it, the sooner we get it over, the
better, what ? ”

“ Absolutely.”

“ Then that’s settled. I accept custody of cat.”

“ It’s the only thing to do,” said Gladys.
“ Meanwhile, can you lend me a comb ? Have
you such a thing in your bedroom ? ”

“ What do you want with a comb ? ”

“ I got some soup in my hair at lunch. I
won’t be a minute.”

THE STORY OF WEBSTER 49

She hurried out, and Lancelot, taking up the
letter again, found that he had omitted to read
a continuation of it on the back page.

It tvas to the following effect :

“ P. S. In establishing Webster in your home,
I am actuated by another motive than the
simple desire to see to it that my faithful friend
and companion is adequately provided for.

“ From both a moral and an educative stand-
point, I am convinced that Webster’s society
will prove of inestimable value to you. His
advent, indeed, I venture to hope, will be a
turning-point in your life. Thrown, as you
must be, incessantly among loose and immoral
Bohemians, you will find in this cat an example
of upright conduct which cannot but act as
an antidote to the poison cup of temptation
which is, no doubt, hourly pressed to your lips.

“ P.P.S. Cream only at midday, and fish
not more than three times a week.”

He was reading these words for the second time,
when the front door-bell rang and he found a
man on the steps with a hamper. A discreet
mew from within revealed its contents, and
Lancelot, carrying it into the studio, cut the strings.
“ Hi ! ” he bellowed, going to the door.

“ What’s up ? ” shrieked his betrothed from
above.

MULLINER NIGHTS

JO

“ The cat’s come.”

“ All right. I’ll be down in a jiffy.”

Lancelot returned to the studio.

“ What ho, Webster ! ” he said cheferily. “ How’s
the boy ? ”

The cat did not reply. It was sitting with
bent head, performing that wash and brush up
which a journey by rail renders so necessary.

In order to facilitate these toilet operations,
it had raised its left leg and was holding it
rigidly in the air. And there flashed into
Lancelot’s mind an old superstition handed on
to him, for what it was worth, by one of the nurses
of his infancy. If, this woman had said, you
creep up to a cat when its leg is in the air and
give it a pull, then you make a wish and your
wish comes true in thirty days.

It was a pretty fancy, and it seemed to Lancelot
that the theory might as well be put to the test.
He advanced warily, therefore, and was in the
act of extending his fingers for the pull, when
Webster, lowering the leg, turned and raised his
eyes.

He looked at Lancelot. And suddenly with
sickening force, there came to Lancelot the
realization of the unpardonable liberty he had
been about to take.

Until this moment, though the postscript to
his uncle’s letter should have warned him,

THE STORY OF WEBSTER 5I

Lancelot Mulliner had had no suspicion of what
manner of cat this was that he had taken into
his home. Now, for the first time, he saw him
steadily and saw him whole.

Webster was very large and very black and
very composed. He conveyed the impression of
being a cat of deep reserves. Descendant of a
long line of ecclesiastical ancestors who had
conducted their decorous courtships beneath the
shadow of cathedrals and on the back walls of
bishops’ palaces, he had that exquisite poise
which one sees in high dignitaries of the church.
His eyes were clear and steady, and seemed to
pierce to the very roots of the young man’s soul,
filling him with a sense of guilt.

Once, long ago, in his hot childhood, Lancelot,
spending his summer holidays at the deanery, had
been so far carried away by ginger-beer and
original sin as to plug a senior canon in the leg
with his air-gun — only to discover, on turning,
that a visiting archdeacon had been a spectator
of the entire incident from his immediate rear.
As he had felt then,- when meeting the arch-
deacon’s eye, so did he feel now as Webster’s gaze
played silently upon him.

Webster, it is true, had hot actually raised his
eyebrows. But this, Lancelot felt, was simply
because he hadn’t any.

He backed, blushing.

MULLINER NIGHTS

“ Sorry ! ” he muttered.

There was a pause. Webster continued his
steady scrutiny. Lancelot edged towards the door.

“ Er — excuse me — -just a momfent ...” he
mumbled. And, sidling from the room, he ran
distractedly upstairs.

“ I say,” said Lancelot.

“ Now what ? ” asked Gladys.

“ Have you finished with the mirror ? ”

“ Why ? ”

“ Well, I — er — I thought,” said Lancelot,
“ that I might as well have a shave.”

The girl looked at him, astonished.

“ Shave ? Why, you shaved only the day
before yesterday.”

“ I know. But, all the same ... I mean to say,
it seems only respectful. That cat, I mean.”

“ Wltat about him ? ”

“ Well, he seems to expect it, somehow.
Nothing actually said, don’t you know, but you
could tell by his manner. I thought a quick
shave and perhaps change into my blue serge
suit ”

“ He’s probably thirsty. Why don’t you give
him some milk ? ”

“ Could one, do you think ? ” said Lancelot
doubtfully. “ I mean, I hardly seem to know
him well enough.” He paused. “ I say, old
girl,” he went on, with a touch of hesitation.

THE STORY OF WEBSTER J3

“ Hullo ? ”

“ I know you won’t mind my mentioning it,
but you’ve got a few spots of ink on your nose.”

“ Of course I have. I always have spots of
ink on my nose.”

“ Well . . . you don’t think ... a quick
scrub with a bit of pumice-stone ... I mean to
say, you know how important first impressions
are. ...”

The girl stared.

“ Lancelot Mulliner,” she said, “ if you
think I’m going to skin my nose to the bone just
to please a mangy cat ”

“ Sh ! ” cried Lancelot, in agony.

“ Here, let me go down and look at him,”
said Gladys petulantly.

As they re-entered the studio, Webster was
gazing with an air of quiet distaste at an illustra-
tion from La Vie Parisienne whieh adorned one
of the walls. Lancelot tore it down hastily.

Gladys looked at Webster in an unfriendly way.

“ So that’s the blighter ! ”

“ Sh ! ”

“ If you want to know what I think,” said
Gladys, “ that cat’s been living too high. Doing
himself a dashed sight too well. You’d better
cut his rations down a bit.”

In substance, her criticism was not unjustified.
Certainly, there was about Webster more than a

MULLINER NIGHTS

54

suspicion of embonpoint. He had that air of
portly well-being which we associate with those
who dwell in cathedral closes. But Lancelot
winced uncomfortably. He had so 'hoped that
Gladys would make a good impression, and here
she was, starting right off by saying the tactless
thing.

He longed to explain to Webster that it was
only her way ; that in the Bohemian circles of
which she was such an ornament genial chaff of
a personal order was accepted and, indeed,
relished. But it was too late. The mischief had
been done. Webster turned in a pointed manner
and withdrew silently behind the chesterfield.

Gladys, all unconscious, was making prepara-
tions for departure.

“ Well, bung-oh,” she said lightly. “ Sec you
in three weeks. I suppose you and that cat’ll
both be out on the tiles the moment my back’s
turned.”

“ Please ! Please ! ” moaned Lancelot.
“ Please ! ”

He had caught sight of the tip of a black tail
protruding from behind the chesterfield. It was
twitching slightly, and Lancelot could read it like
a book. With a sickening sense of dismay, he
knew that Webster had formed a snap judgment
of his fiancee and condemned her as frivolous
and unworthy.

THE STORY OF WEBSTER 55

It was some ten days later that Bernard Worple,
the neo-Vorticist sculptor, lunching at the Puce
Ptarmigan, ran into Rodney Scollop, the power-
ful young sur-realist. And after talking for
a while of their art

“ What’s all this I hear about Lancelot Mull-
iner ? ” asked Worple. “ There’s a wild story
going about that he was seen shaved in the middle
of the week. Nothing in it, I suppose ? ”

Scollop looked grave. He had been on the
point of mentioning Lancelot himself, for he
loved the lad and was deeply exercised about
him.

“ It is perfectly true,” he said.

“It sounds incredible.”

Scollop leaned forward. His fine face was
troubled.

“ Shall I tell you something, Worple ? ”

“ What ? ”

“ I know for an absolute fact,” said Scollop,
“ that Lancelot Mulliner now shaves every
morning.”

Worple pushed aside the spaghetti which he
was wreathing about him and through the gap
stared at his companion.

“ Every morning ? ”

“ Every single morning. I looked in on him
myself the other day, and there he was, neatly
dressed in blue serge and shaved to the core.

MULLINER NIGHTS

56

And, what is more, I got the distinct impression
that he had used talcum powder afterwards.”

“ You don’t mean that ! ”

“ I do. And shall I tell you sorhething else ?
There was a book lying open on the table. He
tried to hide it, but he wasn’t quick enough. It
was one of those etiquette books ! ”

“ An etiquette book ! ”

“ ‘ Polite Behaviour,’ by Constance, Lady Bod-
bank.”

Worple unwound a stray tendril of spaghetti
from about his left ear. He was deeply agitated.
Like Scollop, he loved Lancelot.

“ He’ll be dressing for dinner next ! ” he
exclaimed.

“ I have every reason to believe,” said Scollop
gravely, “ that he does dress for dinner. At
any ratd, a man closely resembling him was seen
furtively buying three stiff collars and a black
tie at Hope Brothers in the King’s Road last
Tuesday.”

Worple pushed his chair back, and rose. His
manner was determined.

“ Scollop,” he said, “ we are friends of
Mulliner’s, you and I. It is evident from what
you tell me that subversive influences are at
work and that never has he needed our friendship
more. Shall we not go round and see him
immediately ? ”

THE STORT OF WEBSTER J7

“ It was what I was about to suggest myself,”
said Rodney Scollop.

Twenty minutes later they were in Lancelot’s
studio, and with a significant glance Scollop
drew his companion’s notice to their host’s
appearance. Lancelot Mulliner was neatly, even
foppishly, dressed in blue serge with creases down
the trouser-legs, and his chin, Worple saw with a
pang, gleamed smoothly in the afternoon light.

At the sight of his friends’ cigars, Lancelot
exhibited unmistakable concern.

“You don’t mind throwing those away, I’m
sure,” he said pleadingly.

Rodney Scollop drew himself up a little
haughtily.

“ And since when,” he asked, “ have the best
fourpenny cigars in Chelsea not been good enough
for you ? ”

Lancelot hastened to soothe him.

“ It isn’t me,” he exclaimed. “ It’s Webster.
My cat. I happen to know he objects to tobacco
smoke. I had to give up my pipe in deference
to his views.”

Bernard Worple snorted.

“ Are you trying to tell us,” he sneered, “ that
Lancelot Mulliner allows himself to be dictated
to by a blasted cat ? ”

“ Hush ! ” cried Lancelot, trembling. “ If you
knew how he disapproves of strong language ! ”

MULLINER NIGHTS

58

" Where Is this cat ? ” asked Rodney Scollop.
“ Is that the animal ? ” he said, pointing out of
the window to where, in the yard, a tough-looking
Tom with tattered cars stood mewing in a hard-
boiled way out of the corner of its mouth.

“ Good heavens, no ! ” said Lancelot. “ That
is an alley cat which comes round here from time
to time to lunch at the dust-bin. Webster is
quite different. Webster has a natural dignity
and repose of manner. Webster is a cat who
prides himself on always being well turned out
and whose high principles and lofty ideals shine
from his eyes like beacon-fires. ...” And then
suddenly, with an abrupt change of manner,
Lancelot broke down and in a low voice added :
“ Curse him ! Curse him ! Curse him ! Curse
him!”

Worple looked at Scollop. Scollop looked at
Worple.

“ Come, old man,” said Scollop, laying a
gentle hand on Lancelot’s bowed shoulder.
“ We are your friends. Confide in us.”

“ Tell us all,” said . Worple. “ What’s the
matter ? ”

Lancelot uttered a bitter, mirthless laugh.

“ You want to know what’s the matter ?
Listen, then. I’m cat-pecked ! ”

“ Cat-pecked ? ”

“ You’ve heard of men being hen-pecked.

THE STORY OF WEBSTER 59

haven’t you ? ” said Lancelot with a touch of
irritation. “ Well, I’m cat-pecked,”

And in broken accents he told his story. He
sketched the history of his association with
Webster from the letter’s first entry into the
studio. Confident now that the animal was not
within earshot, he unbosomed himself without
reserve.

“ It’s something in the beast’s eye,” he said in
a shaking voice. “ Something hypnotic. He
casts a spell upon me. He gazes at me and dis-
approves. Little by little, bit by bit, I am
degenerating under his influence from a whole-
some, self-respecting artist into . . . well, I don’t
know what you would call it. Suffice it to say
that I have given up smoking, that I have ceased to
wear carpet slippers and go about without a
collar, that I never dream of sitting down to my
frugal evening meal without dressing, and ” —
he choked — “ I have sold my ukulele.”

“ Not that ! ” said Worple, paling.

“ Yes,” said Lancelot. “ I felt he considered
it frivolous.”

There was a long silence.

“ Mulliner,” said Scollop, “ this is more
serious than I had supposed. We must brood
upon your case,”

“ It may be possible,” said Worple, “ to find a
way out.”

6o

MULLINER NIGHTS

Lancelot shook his head hopelessly.

“ There is no way out. I have explored every
avenue. . , The only thing that could possibly free
me from this intolerable bondage Would be if
once — just once — I could catch that cat unbend-
ing. If once — merely once — ^it would lapse in
my presence from its austere dignity for but a
single instant, I feel that the spell would be broken.
But what hope is there of that ? ” cried Lancelot
passionately. “ You were pointing just now to
that alley cat in the yard. There stands one
who has strained every nerve and spared no
effort to break down Webster’s inhuman self-
control. I have heard that animal say things to
him which you would think no cat with red blood
in its veins would suffer for an instant. And
Webster merely looks at him like a Suffragan
Bishop eyeing an erring choir-boy and turns his
head and falls into a refreshing sleep.”

He broke off with a dry sob. Worple, always
an optimist, attempted in his kindly way to
minimize the tragedy.

“ Ah, well,” he said. “ It’s bad, of course, but
still, I suppose there is no actual harm in shaving
and dressing for dinner and so on. Many great
artists . . . Whistler, for example ”

“ Wait ! ” cried Lancelot. " You have not
heard the worst.”

He rose feverishly, and, going to the easel.

THE STORY OF WEBSTER 6l

disclosed the portrait of Brenda Carberry-Pir-
bright.

“ Take a look at that,” he said, “ and tell me
what you think of her.”

His two friends surveyed the face before them
in silence. Miss Carberry-Pirbright was a young
woman of prim and glacial aspect. One sought
in vain for her reasons for wanting to have her
portrait painted. It would be a most unpleasant
thing to have about any house.

Scollop broke the silence.

“ Friend of yours ? ”

“ I can’t stand the sight of her,” said Lancelot
vehemently.

“ Then,” said Scollop, “ I may speak frankly.
I think she’s a pill.”

“ A blister,” said Worple.

“ A boil and a disease,” said Scollop, summing
up.

Lancelot laughed hackingly.

“You have described her to a nicety. She
stands for everything most alien to my artist
soul. She gives me a pain in the neck. I’m
going to marry her.”

“ What ! ” cried Scollop.

“ But you’re going to marry Gladys Bingley,”
said Worple.

“ Webster thinks not,” said Lancelot bitterly.
“ At their first meeting he weighed Gladys in

MULLINER NIGHTS

62

the balance and found her wanting. And the
moment he saw Brenda Carberry-Pirbright he
stuck his tail up at right angles, uttered a cordial
gargle, and rubbed his head against her leg.
Then, turning, he looked at me. I could read
that glance. I knew what was in his mind.
From that moment he has been doing everything
in his power to arrange the match.”

“ But, Mulliner,” said Worple, always eager to
point out the bright side, “ why should this
girl want to marry a wretched, scrubby, hard-up
footler like you ? Have courage, Mulliner. It
is simply a question of time before you repel and
sicken her.”

Lancelot shook his head.

“ No,” he said. “ You speak like a true friend,
Worple, but you do not understand. Old Ma
Carberry-Pirbright, this exhibit’s mother, who
chaperons her at the sittings, discovered at an
early date my relationship to my Uncle Theodore,
who, as you know, has got it in gobs. She knows
well enough that some day I shall be a rich man.
She used to know my Uncle Theodore when he
was Vicar of St. Botolph’s in Knightsbridge, and
from the very first she assumed towards me the
repellent chumminess of an old family friend.
She was always trying to lure me to her At
Homes, her Sunday luncheons, her little dinners.
Once she actually suggested that I should escort

THE STORT OF WEBSTER 63

her and her beastly daughter to the Royal
Academy.”

He laughed bitterly. The mordant witticisms
of Lancelot Mulliner at the expense of the Royal
Academy were quoted from Tite Street in the
south to Holland Park in the north and eastward
as far as Bloomsbury.

“ To all these overtures,” resumed Lancelot, “ I
remained firmly unresponsive. My attitude was
from the start one of frigid aloofness. I did not
actually say in so many words that I would
rather be dead in a ditch than at one of her
At Homes, but my manner indicated it. And I
was just beginning to think I had choked her off
when in crashed Webster and upset everything.
Do you know how many times I have been to
that infernal house in the last week ? Five.
Webster seemed to wish it. I tell you, I am a
lost man.”

He buried his face in his hands. Scollop
touched Worple on the arm, and together the
two men stole silently out.

“ Bad ! ” said Worple.

“ Very bad,” said Scollop.

“ It seems incredible.”

“ Oh, no. Cases of this kind are, alas, by no
means uncommon among those who, like
Mulliner, possess to a marked degree the highly-
strung, ultra-sensitive artistic temperament. A

MULLINER NIGHTS

64

friend mine, a rhythmical interior decorator,
once rashly consented to put his aunt’s parrot up
at his studio while she was away visiting friends
in the north of England. She was a woman
of strong evangelical views, which the bird had
imbibed from her. It had a way of putting its
head on one side, making a noise like someone
drawing a cork from a bottle, and asking my
friend if he was saved. To cut a long story
short, I happened to call on him a month later
and he had installed a harmonium in his studio
and was singing hymns, ancient and modern, in
a rich tenor, while the parrot, standing on one
leg on its perch, took the bass. A very sad
affair. We were all much upset about it.”

Worple shuddered.

“ You appal me, Scollop ! Is there nothing
we can do ? ”

Rodney Scollop considered for a moment.

“ We might wire Gladys Bingley to come home
at once. She might possibly reason with the
unhappy man. A woman’s gentle influence . . .
Yes, we could do that. Look in at the post
office on your way home and send Gladys a
telegram. I’ll owe you for my half of it.”

In the studio they had left, Lancelot Mulliner
was staring dumbly at a black shape which had
just entered the room. He had the appearance
of a man with his back to the wall.

THE STORT OF WEBSTER 65

“ No ! ” he was crying. “ No ! I’m dashed
if I do!”

Webster continued to look at him.

“ Why should I ? ” demanded Lancelot weakly.

Webster’s gaze did not flicker.

“ Oh, all right,” said Lancelot sullenly.

He passed from the room with leaden feet,
and, proceeding upstairs, changed into morning
clothes and a top hat. Then, with a gardenia
in his buttonhole, he made his way to 1 1, Maxton
Square, where Mrs. Garberry-Pirbright was
giving one of her intimate little teas (“just a
few friends ”) to meet Clara Throckmorton
Stooge, authoress of “ A Strong Man’s Kiss.”

Gladys Bingley was lunching at her hotel in
Antibes when Worple’s telegram arrived. It
occasioned her the gravest concern.

Exactly what it wzis all about, she was unable
to gather, for emotion had made Bernard Worple
rather incoherent. There were moments, read-
ing it, when she fancied that Lancelot had met
with a serious accident ; others when the
solution seemed to be that he had sprained
his brain to such an extent that rival lunatic
asylums were competing eagerly for his custom ;
others, again, when Worple appeared to be
suggesting that he had gone into pau'tnership with
his cat to start a harem. But one fact emerged

66 MULLINER NIGHTS

clearly. Her loved one was in serious trouble
of some kind, and his best friends were agreed
that only her immediate return could save him.

Gladys did not hesitate. Within half an
hour of the receipt of the telegram she had
packed her trunk, removed a piece of asparagus
from her right eyebrow, and was negotiating
for accommodation on the first train going north.

Arriving in London, her first impulse was to
go straight to Lancelot. But a natural feminine
curiosity urged her, before doing so, to call upon
Bernard Worple and have light thrown on some
of the more abstruse passages in the telegram.

Worple, in his capacity of author, may have
tended towards obscurity, but, when confining
himself to the spoken word, he told a plain story
well and clearly. Five minutes of his society
enabled Gladys to obtain a firm grasp on the
salient facts, and there appeared on her face that
grim, tight-lipped expression which is seen only
on the faces of fiancees who have come back
from a short holiday to discover that their dear
one has been straying in their absence from the
straight and narrow path.

“ Brenda Carberry-Pirbright, eh ? ** said
Gladys, with ominous calm. “ I’ll give him
Brenda Carberry-Pirbright ! My gosh, if one
can’t go off to Antibes for the merest breather
without having one’s betrothed (getting it up his

THE STORY OF WEBSTER 67

nose and starting to act like a Mormon Elder, it
begins to look a pretty tough world for a girl.”

Kind-hearted Bernard Worplc did his best.

“ I blame the cat,” he said. “ Lancelot, to
my mind, is more sinned against than sinning. I
consider him to be acting under undue influence
or duress.”

“ How like a man ! ” said Gladys. “ Shoving
it all off on to an innocent cat ! ”

“ Lancelot says it has a sort of something in its
eye.”

“ Well, when I meet Lancelot,” said Gladys,
“ he’ll find that I have a sort of something in my
eye.”

She went out, breathing flame quietly through
her nostrils. Worple, saddened, heaved a sigh
and resumed his neo-Vorticist sculping.

It was some five minutes later that Gladys,
passing through Maxton Square on her way to
Bott Street, stopped suddenly in her tracks.
The sight she had seen was enough to make
any fiancee do so.

Along the pavement leading to Number
Eleven two figures were advancing. Or three,
if you counted a morose-looking dog of a semi-
Dachshund nature which preceded them,
attached to a leash. One of the figures was that
of Lancelot Mulliner, natty in grey herring-bone
tweed and a new Homburg hat. It was he who

MULLINER NIGHTS

68

held the leash. The other Gladys recognized
from the portrait which she had seen on Lancelot’s
easel as that modern Du Barry, that notorious
wrecker of homes and breaker-up "of love-nests,
Brenda Carberry-Pirbright.

The next moment they had mounted the steps
of Number Eleven, and had gone in to tea,
possibly with a little music.

It was perhaps an hour and a half later that
Lancelot, having wrenched himself with difficulty
from the lair of the Philistines, sped homeward
in a swift taxi. As always after an extended
tite-a-tete with Miss Carberry-Pirbright, he felt
dazed and bewildered, as if he had been swim-
ming in a sea of glue and had swallowed a good
deal of it. All he could think of clearly was that
he wanted a drink and that the materials for
that drink were in the cupboard behind the
chesterfield in his studio.

He paid the cab and charged in with his
tongue rattling dryly against his front teeth.
And there before him was Gladys Bingley, whom
he had supposed far, far away.

“ You ! ” exclaimed Lancelot.

“ Yes, me ! ” said Gladys.

Her long vigil had not helped to restore the
girl’s equanimity. Since arriving at the studio
she had had leisure to tap her foot three thousand.

THE STORY OF WEBSTER 69

one hundred and forty- two times on the carpet,
and the number of bitter smiles which had flitted
across her face was nine hundred and eleven.
She was about ready for the battle of the century.

She rose and faced him, all the woman in her
flashing from her eyes.

“ Well, you Casanova ! ” she said.

“ You who ? ” said Lancelot.

“ Don’t say ‘ Yoo-hoo ! ’ to me ! ” cried
Gladys. “ Keep that for your Brenda Carberry-
Pirbrights. Yes, I know all about it, Lancelot
Don Juan Henry the Eighth Mulliner ! I saw
you with her just now. I hear that you and she
are inseparable. Bernard Worple says you said
you were going to marry her.”

“ You mustn’t believe everything a neo-
Vorticist sculptor tells you,” quavered Lancelot.

“ I’ll bet you’re going back to dinner there
to-night,” said Gladys.

She had spoken at a venture, basing the charge
purely on a possessive cock of the head which
she had noticed in Brenda Garberry-Pirbright at
their recent encounter. There, she had said to
herself at the time, had gone a girl who was about
to invite — or had just invited — Lancelot Mulliner
to dine quietly and take her to the pictures after-
wards. But the shot went home. Lancelot
hung his head.

“ There was some talk of it,” he admitted.

MULLINER NIGHTS

70

“ Ah ! ” exclaimed Gladys.

Lancelot’s eyes were haggard.

“ I don’t want to go,” he pleaded. “ Honestly
I don’t. But Webster insists.”

“ Webster ! ”

“ Yes, Webster. If I attempt to evade the
appointment, he will sit in front of me and look
at me.”

“ Tchah ! ”

“ Well, he will. Ask him for yourself.”

Gladys tapped her foot six times in rapid suc-
cession on the carpet, bringing the total to three
thousand, one hundred and forty-eight. Her
manner had changed and was now dangerously
calm.

“ Lancelot Mulliner,” she said, “ you have
your choice. Me, on the one hand, Brenda
Garberry-Pirbright on the other. I offer you a
home where you will be able to smoke in bed,
spill the ashes on the floor, wear pyjamas and
carpet-slippers all day and shave only on Sunday
mornings. From her, what have you to hope ?
A house in South Kensington — possibly the
Brompton Road — ^probably with her mother
living with you. A life that will be one long
round of stiff collars and tight shoes, of morning-
coats and top hats.”

Lancelot quivered, but she went on remorse-
lessly.

THE STORT OF WEBSTER -Jl

You will be at home on alternate Thursdays,
and will be expected to hand the cucumber
sandwiches. Every day you will air the dog, till
you become a confirmed dog-airer. You will
dine out in Bayswater and go for the summer to
Bournemouth or Dinard. Choose well, Lancelot
Mulliner ! I will leave you to think it over. But
one last word. If by seven-thirty on the dot you
have not presented yourself at 6 a, Garbidge Mews
ready to take me out to dinner at the Ham and
Beef, I shall know what to think and shall act
accordingly.”

And brushing the cigarette ashes from her
chin, the girl strode haughtily from the room.

“ Gladys ! ” cried Lancelot.

But she had gone.

For some minutes Lancelot Mulliner remained
where he was, stunned. Then, insistently, there
came to him the recollection that he had not had
that drink. He rushed to the cupboard and pro-
duced the bottle. He uncorked it, and was
pouring out a lavish stream, when a movement
on the floor below him attracted his attention.

Webster was standing there, looking up at him.
And in his eyes was that familiar expression of
quiet rebuke.

“ Scarcely what I have been accustomed to at
the Deanery,” he seemed to be saying.

72 MULLINER NIGHTS

Lancelot stood paralysed. The feeling of
being bound hand and foot, of being caught in a
snare from which there was no escape, had become
more poignant than ever. The bottle fell from
his nerveless fingers and rolled across the floor,
spilling its contents in an amber river, but he was
too heavy in spirit to notice it. With a gesture
such as Job might have made on discovering a
new boil, he crossed to the window and stood
looking moodily out.

Then, turning with a sigh, he looked at Web-
ster again — and, looking, stood spellbound.

The spectacle which he beheld was of a kind to
stun a stronger man than Lancelot Mullincr.
At first, he shrank from believing his eyes. Then,
slowly, came the realization that what he saw
was no mere figment of a disordered imagination.
This unbelievable thing was actually happening.

Webster sat crouched upon the floor beside the
widening pool of whisky. But it was not horror
and disgust that had caused him to crouch. He
was crouched because, crouching, he could get
nearer to the stuff and obtain crisper action.
His tongue was moving in and out like a piston.

And then abruptly, for one fleeting instant, he
stopped lapping and glanced up at Lancelot,
and across his face there flitted a quick smile —
so genial, so intimate, so full of jovial camaraderie,
that the young man found himself automatically

THE STORY OF WEBSTER 75

smiling back, and not only smiling but winking.
And in answer to that wink Webster winked, too —
a wholehearted, roguish wink that said as plainly
as if he had spoken the words :

“ How long has this been going on ? ’*

Then with a slight hiccough he turned back to
the task of getting his quick before it soaked into
the floor.

Into the murky soul of Lancelot Mulliner there
poured a sudden flood of sunshine. It was as if
a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
The intolerable obsession of the last two weeks
had ceased to oppress him, and he felt a free man.
At the eleventh hour the reprieve had come.
Webster, that seeming pillar of austere virtue,
was one of the boys, after all. Never again would
Lancelot quail beneath his eye. He had the
goods on him.

Webster, like the stag at eve, had now drunk his
fill. He had left the pool of alcohol and was
walking round in slow, meditative circles. From
time to time he mewed tentatively, as if he were
trying to say “ British Constitution.” His failure
to articulate the syllables appeared to tickle him,
for at the end of each attempt he would utter a
slow, amused chuckle. It was at about this
moment that he suddenly broke into a rhythmic
dance, not unlike the old Saraband.

It was an interesting spectacle, and at any

c*

74 MULLINER NIGHTS

Other time Lancelot would have watched it
raptly. But now he was busy at his desk,
writing a brief note to Mrs. Carberry-Pirbright,
the burden of which was that if she thought he
was coming within a mile of her foul house that
night or any other night she had vastly underrated
the dodging powers of Lancelot Mulliner.

And what of Webster ? The Demon Rurn
now had him in an iron grip. A lifetime of
abstinence had rendered him a ready victim
to the fatal fluid. He had now reached the stage
when geniality gives way to belligerence. The
rather foolish smile had gone from his face, and
in its stead there lowered a fighting frown. For
a few moments he stood on his hind legs, looking
about him for a suitable adversary : then, losing
all vestiges of self-control, he ran five times round
the room' at a high rate of speed and, falling
foul of a small footstool, attacked it with the ut-
most ferocity, sparing neither tooth nor claw.

But Lancelot did not see him. Lancelot was
not there. Lancelot was out in Bott Street,
hailing a cab.

“ 6a, Garbidge Mews, Fulham,” said Lancelot
to the driver.

Ill

CATS WILL BE CATS

T here had fallen upon the bar-parlour of
the Anglers’ Rest one of those soothing
silences which from time to time punctu-
ate the nightly feasts of Reason and flows of Soul
in that cosy resort. It was broken by a Whisky
and Splash.

“ I’ve been thinking a lot,” said the Whisky
and Splash, addressing Mr. Mulliner, “ about that
cat of yours, that Webster.”

“ Has Mr. Mulliner got a cat named Webster? ”
asked a Small Port who had just rejoined our
little circle after an absence of some days.

The Sage of the bar-parlour shook his head
smilingly.

” Webster,” he said, “ did not belong to me.
He was the property of the Dean of Bolsover who,
on being raised to a bishopric and sailing from
England to take up his episcopal duties at his
Sec of Bongo- Bongo in West Africa, left the animal
in the care of his nephew, my cousin Edward’s
son Lancelot, the artist. I was telling these
gentlemen the other evening how Webster for

MULLINER NIGHTS

76

a time completely revolutionized Lancelot’s life.
His early upbringing at the Deanery had made
him austere and censorious, and hp exerted on
my cousin’s son the full force of a powerful and
bigoted personality. It was as if Savonarola or
some minor prophet had suddenly been intro-
duced into the carefree, Bohemian atmosphere
of the studio.”

“ He stared at Lancelot and unnerved him,”
explained a Pint of Bitter.

“ He made him shave daily and knock off
smoking,” added a Lemon Sour.

“ He thought Lancelot’s fiancee, Gladys Bing-
ley, worldly,” said a Rum and Milk, “ and tried
to arrange a match between him and a girl called
Brenda Carberry-Pirbright.”

“ But , one day,” concluded Mr. Mulliner,
“ Lancelot discovered that the animal, for all its
apparently rigid principles, had feet of clay and
was no better than the rest of us. He happened
to drop a bottle of alcoholic liquor and the cat
drank deeply of its contents and made a sorry
exhibition of itself, with the result that the spell
was, of course, instantly broken. What aspect
of the story of Webster,” he asked the Whisky
and Splash, “ has been engaging your thoughts? ”

“ The psychological aspect,” said the Whisky
and Splash. “ As I see it, there is a great psycho-
logical drama in this cat. I visualize his higher

CATS WILL BE CATS

77

and lower selves warring. He has taken the
first false step, and what will be the issue ? Is
this new, demoralizing atmosphere into which he
has been plunged to neutralize the pious teachings
of early kittenhood at the Deanery? Or will
sound churchmanship prevail and keep him the
cat he used to be ? ”

“ If,” said Mr. Mulliner, “ I am right in sup-
posing that you want to know what happened to
Webster at the conclusion of the story I related the
other evening, I can tell you. There was nothing
that you could really call a war between his higher
and lower selves. The lower self won hands
down. From the moment when he went on that
first majestic toot this once saintly cat became a
Bohemian of Bohemians. His days started early
and finished late, and were a mere welter of
brawling and loose gallantry. As early as the
end of the second week his left ear had been
reduced through incessant gang-warfare to a
mere tattered scenario and his battle-cry had
become as familiar to the denizens of Bott Street,
Chelsea, as the yodel of the morning milkman.”

The Whisky and Splash said it reminded him
of some great Greek tragedy. Mr. Mulliner said
yes, there were points of resemblance.

“ And what,” enquired the Rum and Milk,
“ did Lancelot think of all this ? ”

“ Lancelot,” said Mr. Mulliner, “ had the easy

7$ MULLINER NIGHTS

live-and-let-live creed of the artist. He was
indulgent towards the animal’s excesses. As he
said to Gladys Bingley one evening, yrhen she was
bathing Webster’s right eye in a boric solution,
cats will be cats. In fact, he would scarcely
have given a thought to the matter had there
not arrived one morning from his uncle a wireless
message, dispatched in mid-ocean, announcing
that he had resigned his bishopric for reasons of
health and would shordy be back in England
once more. The communication ended with
the words All my best to Webster.’ ”

If you recall the position of affairs between
Lancelot and the Bishop of Bongo-Bongo, as I
described them the other night (said Mr. Mull-
iner), you will not need to be told how deeply
this news affected the young man. It was a
bomb-shell. Lancelot, though earning enough
by his brush to support himself, had been relying
on touching his uncle for that extra bit wliich
would enable him to marry Gladys Bingley.
And when he had been placed in loco parentis to
Webster, he had considered this touch a certainty.
Surely, he told himself, the most ordinary grati-
tude would be sufficient to cause his uncle to
unbelt.

But now what ?

“ You saw that wireless,” said Lancelot,

CATS WILL BE CATS 79

agitatedly discussing the matter with Gladys.
“ You remember the closing words : ‘ All my
best to Webster.’ Uncle Theodore’s first act
on landing in England will undoubtedly be to
hurry here for a sacred reunion with this cat.
And what will he find ? A feline plug-ugly. A
gangster. The Big Shot of Bott Street. Look
at the animal now,” said Lancelot, waving a
distracted hand at the cushion where it lay.
“ Run your eye over him. I ask you ! ”

Certainly Webster was not a natty spectacle.
Some tough cats from the public-house on the
corner had recently been trying to muscle in on
his personal dust-bin, and, though he had fought
them off, the affair had left its mark upon him.
A further section had been removed from his
already abbreviated ear, and his once sleek flanks
were short of several patches of hair. He looked
like the late Legs Diamond after a social evening
with a few old friends.

“ What,” proceeded Lancelot, writhing visibly,
“ will Uncle Theodore say on beholding that
wreck ? He will put the entire blame on me.
He will insist that it was I who dragged that fine
spirit down into the mire. And phut will go any
chance I ever had of getting into his ribs for a
few hundred quid for honeymoon expenses.”

Gladys Bingley struggled with a growing
hopelessness*

So MULLINER NIGHTS

“ You don’t think a good wig-maker could do
something ? ”

“A wig-maker might patch on a little extra
fur,” admitted Lancelot, “ but how about that
ear ? ”

“ A facial surgeon ? ” suggested Gladys.

Lancelot shook his head.

“ It isn’t merely his appearance,” he said.
“ It’s his entire personality. The poorest reader
of character, meeting Webster now, would
recognize him for what he is — a hard egg and a
bad citizen.”

“ When do you expect your uncle ? ” asked
Gladys, after a pause.

“ At any moment. He must have landed by
this time. I can’t understand why he has not
turned up.”

At this moment there sounded from the passage
outside the plop of a letter falling into the box
attached to the front door. Lancelot went list-
lessly out. A few moments later Gladys heard
him utter a surprised exclamation, and he came
hurrying back, a sheet of note-paper in his hand.

“ Listen to this,” he said. “ From Uncle
Theodore.”

“ Is he in London ? ”

“ No. Down in Hampshire, at a place called
Widdrington Manor. And the great point is
that he does not want to see Webster yet.”

CATS WILL BE CATS 8l

“ Why not ? ”

“ I’ll read you what he says.”

And Lancelot proceeded to do so, as follows :

“ Widdrington Manor,

“ Bottleby-in- the- Vale,

“ Hants.

*‘My Dear Lancelot,

“You will doubtless be surprised that I
have not hastened to greet you immediately
upon my return to these shores. The explana-
tion is that I am being entertained at the above
address by Lady Widdrington, widow of the
late Sir George Widdrington, C.B.E., and her
mother, Mrs. Pulteney-Banks, whose acquain-
tance I made on shipboard during my voyage
home.

“ I find our English countryside charming
after the somewhat desolate environment of
Bongo-Bongo, and am enjoying a pleasant
and restful visit. Both Lady Widdrington and
her mother are kindness itself, especially the
former, who is my constant companion on every
country ramble. We have a strong bond in
our mutual love of cats.

“ And this, my dear boy, brings me to the
subject of Webster. As you can readily
imagine, I am keenly desirous of seeing him
once more and noting all the evidences of the

82 MULLINER NIGHTS

loving care which, I have no doubt, you have
lavished upon him in my absence, but I do not
wish you to forward him to me here. The fact
is. Lady Widdrington, though' a charming
woman, seems entirely lacking in discrimina-
tion in the matter of cats. She owns and is
devoted to a quite impossible orange-coloured
animal of the name of Percy, whose society
could not but prove distasteful to one of
Webster’s high principles. When I tell you
that only last night this Percy was engaging in
personal combat — quite obviously from the
worst motives — ^with a large tortoiseshell be-
neath my very window, you will understand
what I mean.

“ My refusal to allow Webster to join me here
is, I fear, puzzling my kind hostess, who knows
how greatly I miss him, but I must be firm.

“ Keep him, therefore, my dear Lancelot,
until I call in person, whpn I shall remove him
to the quiet rural retreat where I plan to spend
the evening of my life.

“ With every good wish to you both,

“ Your affectionate uncle,

“ Theodore.”

Gladys Bingley had listened intently to this
letter, and as Lancelot came to the end of it she
breathed a sigh of relief.

CATS WILL BE CATS

85

“ Well, that gives us a bit of time,” she said.

“ Yes,” agreed Lancelot. “ Time to see if we
can’t awake in this animal some faint echo of its
old self-respect. From to-day Webster goes into
monastic seclusion. I shall take him round to the
vet.’s, with instructions that he be forced to lead
the simple life. In those pure surroundings, with
no temptations, no late nights, plain food and a
strict milk diet, he may become himself again.”

“ ‘ The Man who Came Back,’ ” said Gladys.
“ Exactly,” said Lancelot.

And so for perhaps two weeks something ap-
proaching tranquillity reigned once more in
my cousin Edward’s son’s studio in Bott Street,
Chelsea. The veterinary surgeon issued en-
couraging reports. He claimed a distinct in\-
provementin Webster’s character and appearance,
though he added that he would still not care to
meet him at night in a lonely alley. And then
one morning there arrived from his Uncle Theo-
dore a telegram which caused the young man to
knit his brows in bewilderment.

It ran thus :

“ On receipt of this come immediately Wid-
drington Manor prepared for indefinite visit
period Circumstances comma I regret to say
comma necessitate innocent deception semi-

MULLINER NIGHTS

84

colon so will you state on arrival that you are
my legal representative and have come to
discuss important family matters with me
period Will explain fully when s6e you comma
but rest assured comma my dear boy comma
that would not ask this were it not absolutely
essential period Do not fail me period Regards
to Webster.”

Lancelot finished reading this mysterious com-
munication, and looked at Gladys with raised
eyebrows. There is unfortunately in most artists
a material streak which leads them to place an
unpleasant interpretation on telegrams like this.
Lancelot was no exception to the rule.

“ The old boy’s been having a couple,” was
his verdict.

Gladys, a woman and therefore more spiritual,
demurred.

“ It sounds to me,” she said, “ more as if he had
gone off his onion. Why should he want you
to pretend to be a lawyer ? ”

“ He says he will explain fully.”

“ And how do you pretend to be a lawyer ? ”
Lancelot considered.

“ Lawyers cough dryly, I know that,” he said.
“ And then I suppose one would put the tips of
the fingers together a good deal and talk about
Rex V. Biggs Ltd. and torts and malfeasances and

CATS WILL BE CATS 8j

SO forth. I think I could give a reasonably
realistic impersonation.”

“ Well, if you’re going, you’d better start
practising.”

“ Oh, I’m going all right,” said Lancelot.
“ Uncle Theodore is evidently in trouble of some
kind, and my place is by his side. If all goes
well, I might be able to bite his ear before he sees
Webster. About how much ought we to have
in order to get married comfortably ? ”

“ At least five hundred.”

“ I will bear it in mind,” said Lancelot,
coughing dryly and putting the tips of his fingers
together.

Lancelot had hoped, on arriving at Widdring-
ton Manor, that the first person he met would
be his Uncle Theodore, explaining fully. But
when the butler ushered him into the drawing-
room only Lady Widdrington, her mother Mrs.
Pulteney-Banks, and her cat Percy were present.
Lady Widdrington shook hands, Mrs. Pulteney-
Banks bowed from the arm-chair in which she
sat swathed in shawls, but when Lancelot
advanced with the friendly intention of tickling
the cat Percy under the right ear, he gave the
young man a cold, evil look out of the comer of
his eye and, backing a pace, took an inch of
skin oflF his hand with one well-judged swipe of
a steel-pronged paw.

86

MULLINER NIGHTS

Lady Widdrington stiffened.

“ I’m afraid Percy does not like you,” she
said in a distant voice.

“ They know, they know ! * said Mrs.
Pulteney-Banks darkly. She knitted and purled
a moment, musing. “ Cats are cleverer than
we think,” she added.

Lancelot’s agony was too keen to permit him
even to cough dryly. He sank into a chair and
surveyed the litde company with watering eyes.

They looked to him a hard bunch. Of Mrs.
Pulteney-Banks he could see little but a cocoon
of shawls, but Lady Widdrington was right out
in the open, and Lancelot did not like her
appearance. The chatelaine of Widdrington
Manor was one of those agate-eyed, purposeful,
tweed-clad women of whom rural England seems
to have a monopoly. She was not unlike what
he imagined Queen Elizabeth must have been
in her day. A determined and vicious specimen.
He marvelled that even a mutual affection for
cats could have drawn his gentle uncle to such a
one.

As for Percy, he was pure poison. Orange of
body and inky-black of soul, he lay stretched
out on the rug, exuding arrogance and hate.
Lancelot, as I have said, was tolerant of toughness
in cats, but there was about this animal none of
Webster’s jolly, whole-hearted, swashbuckling

CATS WILL BE CATS 87

rowdiness. Webster was the sort of cat who
would charge, roaring and ranting, to dispute
with some rival the possession of a decaying
sardine, but there was no more vice in him
than in the late John L. Sullivan. Percy, on
the other hand, for all his sleek exterior, was
mean and bitter. He had no music in his soul,
and was fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.
One could picture him stealing milk from a
sick tabby.

Gradually the pain of Lancelot’s wound began
to abate, but it was succeeded by a more spiritual
discomfort. It was plain to him that the recent
episode had made a bad impression on the two
women. They obviously regarded him with
suspicion and dislike. The atmosphere was
frigid, and conversation proceeded jerkily.
Lancelot was glad when the dressing-gong
sounded and he could escape to his room.

He was completing the tying of his tie when
the door opened and the Bishop of Bongo-Bongo
entered.

“ Lancelot, my boy ! ” said the Bishop.

“ Uncle ! ” cried Lancelot.

They clasped hands. More than four years
had passed since these two had met, and Lancelot
was shocked at the other’s appearance. When
last he had seen him, at the dear old deanery,
his Uncle Theodore had been a genial, robust

88 MULLINE& NIGHTS

man who wore his gaiters with an air. Now, in
some subtle way, he seemed to have shrunk.
He looked haggard and hunted. He reminded
Lancelot of a rabbit with a good deal on its
mind.

The Bishop had moved to the door. He
opened it and glanced along the passage. Then
he closed it and tip-toeing back, spoke in a
cautious undertone.

“ It was good of you to come, my dear boy,”
he said.

“ Why, of course I came,” replied Lancelot
heartily. “ Are you in trouble of some kind.
Uncle Theodore ? ”

“ In the gravest trouble,” said the Bishop, his
voice a mere whisper. He paused for a moment.
“ You have met Lady Widdrington ? ”

“ Yes!”

” Then when I tell you that, unless ceaseless
vigilance is exercised, I shall undoubtedly propose
marriage to her, you will appreciate my concern.”

Lancelot gaped.

“ But why do you want to do a potty thing
like that ? ”

The Bishop shivered.

“ I do not want to do it, my boy,” he said.
“ Nothing is further from my wishes. The
salient point, however, is that Lady Widdrington
and her mother want me to do it, and you must

CATS WILL BE CATS 89

have seen for yourself that they are strong,
determined women. I fear the worst.”

He tottered to a chair and dropped into it,
shaking. Lancelot regarded him with affec-
tionate pity.

” When did this start ? ” he asked.

“ On board ship,” said the Bishop. “ Have
you ever made an ocean voyage, Lancelot ? ”

“ I’ve been to America a couple of times.”

“ That can scarcely be the same thing,” said
the Bishop, musingly. “ The transatlantic trip
is so brief, and you do not get those nights of
tropic moon. But even on your voyages to
America you must have noticed the peculiar
attitude towards the opposite sex induced by
the salt air.”

“ They all look good to you at sea,” agreed
Lancelot.

“ Precisely,” said the Bishop. “ And during
a voyage, especially at night, one finds oneself
expressing oneself with a certain warmth which
even at the time one tells oneself is injudicious.
I fear that on board the liner with Lady Widdring-
ton, my dear boy, I rather let myself go.”

Lancelot began to understand.

“ You shouldn’t have come to her house,” he
said.

” When I accepted the invitation, I was, if I
may use a figure of speech, still under the

MULLINER NIGHTS

96

influence. It was only after I had been here
some ten days that I awoke to the realization
of my peril.”

“ Why didn’t you leave ? ”

The Bishop groaned softly.

“ They would not permit me to leave. They
countered every excuse. I am virtually a
prisoner in this house, Lancelot. The other day
I said that I had urgent business with my legal
adviser and that this made it imperative that I
should proceed instantly to the metropolis.”

” That should have worked,” said Lancelot.

“ It did not. It failed completely. They
insisted that I invite my legal adviser down here
where my business could be discussed in the calm
atmosphere of the Hampshire countryside. I
endeavoured to reason with them, but they
were firm. You do not know how firm women
can be,” said the Bishop, shivering, “ till you
have placed yourself in my unhappy position.
How well I appreciate now that powerful image
of Shakespeare’s — the one about grappling with
hoops of steel. Every time I meet Lady
Widdrington, I can feel those hoops drawing me
ever closer to her. And the woman repels me
even as that cat of hers repels me. Tell me, my
boy, to turn for an instant to a pleasanter subject,
how is my dear Webster ? ”

Lancelot hesitated.

CATS WILL BE CATS 91

“ Full of beans,” he said.

“ He is on a diet ? ” asked the Bishop anxiously.
“ The doctor has ordered vegetarianism ? ”

“Just an expression,” explained Lancelot, “ to
indicate robustness.”

“ Ah ! ” said the Bishop, relieved. “ And
what disposition have you made of him in your
absence ? He is in good hands, I trust ? ”

“ The best,” said Lancelot. “ His host is the
ablest veterinary in London — Doctor J. G.
Robinson of 9 Bott Street, Chelsea, a man not
only skilled in his profession but of the highest
moral tone.”

“ I knew I could rely on you to see that all
was well with him,” said the Bishop emotionally.
“ Otherwise, I should have shrunk from asking
you to leave London and come here — strong shield
of defence though you will be to me in my peril.”

“ But what use can I be to you ? ” said
Lancelot, puzzled.

“ The greatest,” the Bishop assured him.
“ Your presence will be invaluable. You must
keep the closest eye upon Lady Widdrington
and myself, and whenever you observe us
wandering off together — she is assiduous in her
efforts to induce me to visit the rose-garden in
her company, for example — you must come
hurrying up and detach me with the ostensible
purpose of discussing legal matters. By these

MULLINER NIGHTS

9z

means we may avert what I had come to regard
as the inevitable.”

“ I understand thoroughly,” said Lancelot.
“ A jolly good scheme. Rely on mer.”

“ The ruse I have outlined,” said the Bishop
regretfully, “ involves, as I hinted in my telegram,
a certain innocent deception, but at times like
this one cannot afford to be too nice in one’s
methods. By the way, under what name did you
make your appearance here ? ”

“ I used my own.”

” I would have preferred Polkinghorne or
Gooch or Withers,” said the Bishop pensively.
“ They sound more legal. However, that is a
small matter. The essential thing is that I
may rely on you to — er — to ? ”

“ To stick around ? ”

" Exactly. To adhere. From now on, my
boy, you must be my constant shadow. And if,
as I trust, our efforts are rewarded, you will not
find me ungrateful. In the course of a lifetime
1 have contrived to accumulate no small supply
of this world’s goods, and if there is any little
venture or enterprise for which you require a
certain amount of capital ”

“ I am glad,” said Lancelot, “ that you brought
this up. Uncle Theodore. As it so happens, I am
badly in need of five hundred pounds — and
could, indeed, do with a thousand.”

CATS WILL BE CATS

93

The Bishop grasped his hand.

“ See me through this ordeal, my dear boy,”
he said, “ and you shall have it. For what
purpose do you require this money ? ”

“ I want to get married.”

“ Ugh ! ” said the Bishop, shuddering strongly.
“ Well, well,” he went on, recovering himself,
“ it is no affair of mine. No doubt you know
your own mind best. I must confess, however,
that the mere mention of the holy state occasions
in me an indefinable sinking feeling. But then,
of course, you are not proposing to marry Lady
Widdrington.”

“ And nor,” cried Lancelot heartily, “ arc you,
uncle — not while I’m around. Tails up. Uncle
Theodore, tails up ! ”

“ Tails up ! ” repeated the Bishop dutifully,
but he spoke the words without any real ring of
conviction in his voice.

It was fortunate that, in the days wliich
followed, my cousin Edward’s son Lancelot was
buoyed up not only by the prospect of collecting
a thousand pounds, but also by a genuine sym-
pathy and pity for a well-loved uncle. Otherwise,
he must have faltered and weakened.

To a sensitive man — and all artists are sensi-
tive — there are few things more painful than the
realization that he is an unwelcome guest. And

MULLINER NIGHTS

94

not even if he had had the vanity of a Narcissus
could Lancelot have persuaded himself that he
was persona grata at Widdrington Manor.

The march of civilization has done much to
curb the natural ebullience of woman. It has
brought to her the power of self-restraint.
In emotional crises nowadays women seldom
give physical expression to their feelings ; and
neither Lady Widdrington nor her mother, the
aged Mrs. Pulteney-Banks, actually struck Lan-
celot or spiked him with a knitting-needle. But
there were moments when they seemed only by
a miracle of strong will to check themselves from
such manifestations of dislike.

As the days went by, and each day the young
man skilfully broke up a promising tite-d-tite^ the
atmosphere grew more tense and electric. Lady
Widdrington spoke dreamily of the excellence of
the train service between Bottleby-in-the-Vale
and London, paying a particularly marked tribute
to the 8.45 a.m. express. Mrs. Pulteney-Banks
mumbled from among her shawls of great gowks
— she did not specify more exactly, courteously
refraining from naming names — who spent their
time idling in the country (where they were not
wanted) when their true duty and interest lay
in the metropolis. The cat Percy, by word and
look, continued to affirm his low opinion of
Lancelot.

CATS WILL BE CATS 9J

And, to make matters worse, the young man
could see that his principal’s morale was becoming
steadily lowered. Despite the uniform success of
their manoeuvres, it was evident that the strain
was proving too severe for the Bishop. He was
plainly cracking, A settled hopelessness had
crept into his demeanour. More and more had
he come to resemble a rabbit who, fleeing from
a stoat, draws no cheer from the reflection that
he is all right so far, but flings up his front paws
in a gesture of despair, as if to ask what
profit there can be in attempting to evade the
inevitable.

And, at length, one night when Lancelot had
s\vitchcd off his light and composed himself for
sleep, it was switched on again and he perceived
his uncle standing by the bedside, with a haggard
expression on his fine features.

At a glance Lancelot saw that the good old
man had reached breaking-point.

“ Something the matter, uncle ? ” he asked.

“ My boy,” said the Bishop, “ we are undone,”

" Oh, surely not ? ” said Lancelot, as cheerily
as his sinking heart would permit.

“ Undone,” repeated the Bishop hollowly.
“ To-night Lady Widdrington specifically in-
formed me that she wishes you to leave the
house.”

Lancelot drew in his breath sharply. Natural

MULLINER NIGHTS

96

optimist though he was, he could not minimize
the importance of this news.

“ She has consented to allow you to remain for
another two days, and then the butler has
instructions to pack your belongings in time for
the eight-forty-five express.”

“ H’m ! ” said Lancelot.

“ H’m, indeed,” said the Bishop. “ This
means that I shall be left alone and defenceless.
And even with you sedulously watching over me
it has been a very near thing once or twice.
That afternoon in the summer-house ! ”

“ And that day in the shrubbery,” said Lan-
celot. There was a heavy silence for a moment.

“ What are you going to do ? ” asked Lancelot.

“ I must think . . . think,” said the Bishop.
“ Well„good night, my boy.”

He left the room with bowed head, and
Lancelot, after a long period of wakeful medita-
tion, fell into a fitful slumber.

From this he wzis aroused some two hours later
by an extraordinary commotion somewhere out-
side his room. The noise appeared to proceed
from the hall, and, donning a dressing-gown, he
hurried out.

A strange spectacle met his eyes. The entire
numerical strength of Widdrington Manor seemed
to have assembled in the hall. There was Lady
Widdrington in a mauve nigligi, Mrs. Pulteney-

CATS WILL BE CATS 97

Banks in a system of shawls, the butler in pyjamas,
a footman or two, several maids, the odd-job
man, and the boy who cleaned the shoes. They
were gazing in manifest astonishment at the
Bishop of Bongo-Bongo, who stood, fully clothed,
near the front door, holding in one hand an
umbrella, in the other a bulging suit-case.

In a corner sat the cat, Percy, swearing in a
quiet undertone.

As Lancelot arrived the Bishop blinked and
looked dazedly about him.

“ Where am I ? ” he said.

Willing voices informed him that he was at
Widdrington Manor, Bottleby-in- the- Vale, Hants,
the butler going so far as to add the telephone
number.

“ I think,” said the Bishop, “ I must have been
walking in my sleep.”

“ Indeed ? ” said Mrs. Pulteney-Banks, and
Lancelot could detect the dryness in her tone.

“ I am sorry to have been the cause of robbing
the household of its well-earned slumber,” said
the Bishop nervously. “ Perhaps it would be
best if I now retired to my room.”

“ Quite,” said Mrs. Pulteney-Banks, and once
again her voice crackled dryly.

“ I’ll come and tuck you up,” said Lancelot.

“ Thank you, my boy,” said the Bishop.

Safe from observation in his bedroom, the

98 MULLINER NIGHTS

Bishop sank wearily on the bed, and allowed the
umbrella to fall hopelessly to the floor.

“It is Fate,” he said. “Why struggle
further ? ”

“ What happened ? ” asked Lancelot.

“ I thought matters over,” said the Bishop,
“ and decided that my best plan would be to
escape quietly under cover of the night. I had
intended to wire to Lady Widdrington on the
morrow that urgent matters of personal impor-
tance had necessitated a sudden visit to London.
And just as I was getting the front door open 1
trod on that cat.”

“ Percy ? ”

“ Percy,” said the Bishop bitterly. “ He was
prowling about in the hall, on who knows what
dark errand. It is some small satisfaction to me
in my distress to recall that I must have flattened
out his tail properly. I came down on it with
my full weight, and I am not a slender man.
Well,” he said, sighing drearily, “ this is the end.
I give up. I yield.”

“ Oh, don’t say that, uncle.”

“ I do say that,” replied the Bishop, with some
asperity. “ What else is there to say ? ”

It was a question which Lancelot found
himself unable to answer. Silently he pressed
the other’s hand, and walked out.

CATS WILL BE CATS 99

In Mrs. Pulteney-Banks’s room, meanwhile, an
earnest conference was taking place.

“ Walking in his sleep, indeed ! ” said Mrs.
Pulteney-Banks.

Lady Widdrington seemed to take exception
to the older woman’s tone.

“ Why shouldn’t he walk in his sleep ? ” she
retorted.

“ Why should he ? ”

“ Because he was worrying.”

“ Worrying ! ” sniffed Mrs. Pulteney-Banks.

“ Yes, worrying,” said Lady Widdrington, with
spirit. “ And I know why. You don’t under-
stand Theodore as I do.”

“ As slippery as an eel,” grumbled Mrs.
Pulteney-Banks. “ He was trying to sneak off to
London.”

“ Exactly,” said Lady Widdrington. “ To his
cat. You don’t understand what it means to
Theodore to be separated from his cat. I have
noticed for a long time that he was restless and ill
at case. The reason is obvious. He is pining for
Webster. I know what it is myself. That time
when Percy was lost for two days I nearly went
olF my head. Directly after breakfast to-morrow
I shall wire to Doctor Robinson of Bott Street,
Chelsea, in whose charge ^Vebster now is, to send
him down here by the first train. Apart from any-
thing else, he will be nice company for Percy.”

lOO MULLINER NIGHTS

“ Tchah ! ** said Mrs. Pulteney-Banks.

“ What do you mean, Tchah ? ” demanded
Lady Widdrington.

“ I mean Tchah,” said Mrs. Pulteney-Banks.

An atmosphere of constraint hung over Wid-
drington Manor throughout the following day.
The natural embarrassment of the Bishop was
increased by the attitude of Mrs. Pulteney-Banks,
who had contracted a habit of looking at him
over her zareba of shawls and sniffing meaningly.
It was with relief that towards the middle of
the afternoon he accepted Lancelot’s suggestion
that they should repair to the study and finish up
what remained of their legal business.

The study wais on the ground floor, looking out
on pleasant lawns and shrubberies. Through the
open window came the scent of summer flowers.
It was a scene which should have soothed the
most bruised soul, but the Bishop was plainly
unable to draw refreshment from it. He sat with
his head in his hands, refusing all Lancelot’s
well-meant attempts at consolation.

“ Those sniffs ! ” he said, shuddering, as if
they still rang in his ears. “ What meaning they
held ! What a sinister significance ! ”

“ She may just have got a cold in the head,”
urged Lancelot.

“ No. The matter went deeper than that.

CATS WILL BE CATS 101

They meant that that terrible old woman saw
through my subterfuge last night. She read me
like a book. From now on there will be added
vigilance. I shall not be permitted out of their
sight, and the end can be only a question of time.
Lancelot, my boy,” said the Bishop, extending a
trembling hand pathetically towards his nephew,
“ you are a young man on the threshold of life.
If you wish that life to be a happy one, always
remember this : when on an ocean voyage,
never visit the boat-deck after dinner. You will
be tempted. You will say to yourself that the
lounge is stuffy and that the cool breezes will
correct that replete feeling which so many of us
experience after the evening meal . . . you will
think how pleasant it must be up there, with the
rays of the moon turning the waves to molten
silver . . . but don’t go, my boy, don’t go ! ”

“ Right-ho, uncle,” said Lancelot soothingly.

The Bishop fell into a moody silence.

“ It is not merely,” he resumed, evidendy
having followed some train of thought, “ that, as
one of Nature’s bachelors, I regard the married
state with alarm and concern. It is the peculiar
conditions of my tragedy that render me dis-
traught. My lot once linked to that of Lady
Widdrington, I shall never sec Webster again.”

“ Oh, come, uncle. This is morbid.”

The Bishop shook his head.

MULLINER NIGHTS

102

“ No,” he said. “ If this marriage takes place,
my path and Webster’s must divide. I could not
subject that pure cat to life at Widdrington
Manor, a life involving, as it would, the constant
society of the animal Percy. He would be
contaminated. You know Webster, Lancelot.
He has been your companion — may I not almost
say your mentor ? — for months. You know the
loftiness of his ideals.”

For an instant, a picture shot through Lance-
lot’s mind — the picture of Webster, as he had
seen him only a brief while since — standing in the
yard with the backbone of a herring in his
mouth, crooning a war-song at the alley-cat from
whom he had stolen the bonne-bouche. But he
replied without hesitation.

“ Oh, rather.”

“ They are very high.”

” Extremely high.”

‘‘ And his dignity,” said the Bishop. “ I
deprecate a spirit of pride and self-esteem, but
Webster’s dignity was not tainted with those
qualities. It rested on a clear conscience and tlie
Imowledge that, even as a kitten, he had never
permitted his feet to stray. I wish you could
have seen Webster as a kitten, Lancelot.”

“ I wish I could, uncle.”

** He never played with balls of wool, preferring
to sit in the shadow of the cathedral wall, listen-

CATS WILL BE CATS

105

ing to the clear singing of the choir as it melted
on the sweet stillness of the summer day. Even
then you could see that deep thoughts exercised
his mind. I remember once . . .”

But the reminiscence, unless some day it made
its appearance in the good old man’s memoirs,
was destined to be lost to the world. For at this
moment the door opened and the butler entered.
In his arms he bore a hamper, and from this
hamper there proceeded the wrathful ejaculations
of a cat who has had a long train-journey under
constricted conditions and is beginning to ask
what it is all about.

“ Bless my soul ! ” cried the Bishop, startled.

A sickening sensation of doom darkened Lance-
lot’s soul. He had recognized that voice. He
knew what was in that hamper.

“ Stop ! ” he exclaimed. “ Uncle Theodore,
don’t open that hamper ! ”

But it was too late. Already the Bishop was
cutting the strings with a hand that trembled
with eagerness. Chirruping noises proceeded
from him. In his eyes was the wild gleam seen
only in the eyes of cat-lovers restored to their
loved one.

“ Webster ! ” he called in a shaking voice.

And out of the hamper shot Webster, full of
strange oaths. For a moment he raced about
the room, apparently searching for the man who

MULLINER NIGHTS

104

had shut him up in the thing, for there was flame
in his eye. Becoming calmer, he sat down and
began to lick himself, and it was then for the first
time that the Bishop was enabled to get a steady
look at him.

Two weeks* residence at the vet.’s had done
something for Webster, but not enough. Not,
Lancelot felt agitatedly, nearly enough. A mere
fortnight’s seclusion cannot bring back fur to
lacerated skin ; it cannot restore to a chewed ear
that extra inch which makes all the difference.
Webster had gone to Doctor Robinson looking
as if he had just been caught in machinery of
some kind, and that was how, though in a very
slightly modified degree, he looked now. And at
the sight of him the Bishop uttered a sharp,
anguished- cry. Then, turning on Lancelot, he
spoke in a voice of thunder.

“ So this, Lancelot Mulliner, is how you have
fulfilled your sacred trust ! ”

Lancelot was shaken, but he contrived to reply.

“ It wasn’t my fault, uncle. There was no
stopping him.”

“ Pshaw ! ”

“ Well, there wasn’t,” said Lancelot. “ Besides,
what harm is there in an occasional healthy scrap
with one of the neighbours ? Cats will be cats.”

” A sorry piece of reasoning,” said the Bishop,
breathing heavily.

CATS WILL BE CATS lOJ

“ Personally,” Lancelot went on, though speak-
ing dully, for he realized how hopeless it all was,
“ if I owned Webster, I should be proud of him.
Consider his record,” said Lancelot, wanning a
little as he proceeded. “ He comes to Bott Street
without so much tis a single fight under his belt,
and, despite this inexperience, shows himself
possessed of such genuine natural talent that in
two weeks he has every cat for streets around
jumping walls and climbing lamp-posts at the
mere sight of him. I wish,” said Lancelot, now
carried away by his theme, “ that you could have
seen him clean up a puce-coloured Tom from
Number Eleven. It was the finest sight I have
ever witnessed. He was conceding pounds to
this animal, who, in addition, had a reputation
extending as far afield as the Fulham Road. The
first round was even, with the exchanges perhaps
a shade in favour of his opponent. But when
the gong went for Round Two . . .”

The Bishop raised his hand. His face wtis
drawn.

“ Enough ! ” he cried. “ I am inexpressibly
grieved. I . . .”

He stopped. Something had leaped upon the
window-sill at his side, causing him to start
violently. It was the cat Percy who, hearing
a strange feline voice, had come to investigate.

There were days when Percy, mellowed by

D*

MULUNER NIGHTS

106

the influence of cream and the sunshine, could
become, if not agreeable, at least free from
active venom. Lancelot had once seen him
actually playing with a ball of paper. But it
was evident immediately that this was not one
of those days. Percy was plainly in evil mood.
His dark soul gleamed from his narrow eyes.
He twitched his tail to and fro, and for a moment
stood regarding Webster with a hard sneer.

Then, wiggling his whiskers, he said some-
thing in a low voice.

Until he spoke, Webster had apparently not
observed his arrival. He was still cleaning
himself after the journey. But, hearing this
remark, he started and looked up. And, as he
saw Percy, his ears flattened and the battle-
light came into his eye.

There was a moment’s pause. Cat stared at
cat. Then, swishing his tail to and fro, Percy
repeated his statement in a louder tone. And
from this point, Lancelot tells me, he could follow
the conversation word for word as easily as if
he had studied cat-language for years.

This, he says, is how the dialogue ran :

Webster : Who, me ?

Percy : Yes, you.

Webster : A what ?

Percy : You heard.

CATS WILL BE CATS I07

Webster : Is that so ?

Percy: Yeah.

Webster: Yeah?

Percy: Yeah. Come on up here and I’ll
bite the rest of your ear off.

Webster : Yeah ? You and who else ?

Percy : Come on up here. I dare you.

Webster {flushing hotly ) : You do, do you ? Of
all the nerve ! Of all tlie crust ! Why, I’ve
eaten better cats than you before breakfast.

(to Lancelot)

Here, hold my coat and stand to one side.
Now, then !

And, with this, there was a whizzing sound
and Webster had advanced in full battle-order.
A moment later, a tangled mass that looked
like seventeen cats in close communion fell from
the window-sill into the room.

A cat-fight of major importance is always a
spectacle worth watching, but Lancelot tells me
that, vivid and stimulating though this one
promised to be, his attention was riveted not
upon it, but upon the Bishop of Bongo-Bongo.

In the first few instants of the encounter the
prelate’s features had betrayed no emotion
beyond a grievous alarm and pain. “ How art
thou fallen from Heaven, oh Lucifer, Son of
Morning,” he seemed to be saying as he watched

Io8 MULLINER NIGHTS

his once blameless pet countering Percy’s on-
slaught with what had the appearance of being
about sixteen simultaneous legs. And then,
almost abruptly, there seemed to awake in him
at the same instant a passionate pride in
Webster’s prowess and that sporting spirit which
lies so near the surface in all of us. Crimson in
the face, his eyes gleaming with partisan
enthusiasm, he danced round the combatants,
encouraging his nominee with word and gesture.

“ Capital ! Excellent ! All, stoutly struck,
Webster ! ”

“ Hook him with your left, Webster ! ” cried
Lancelot.

“ Precisely ! ” boomed the Bishop.

“ Soak him, Webster ! ”

“ Indubitably ! ” agreed the Bishop. “ The
expression is new to me, but I appreciate its pith
and vigour. By means, soak him, my dear
Webster.”

And it was at this moment that Lady Widdring-
ton, attracted by the noise of battle, came
hurrying into the room. She was just in time
to see Percy run into a right swing and bound
for the window-sill, closely pursued by his
adversary. Long since Percy had begun to
realize that, in inviting this encounter, he had
gone out of his class and come up against some-
thing hot. All he wished for now was flight.

CATS WILL BE CATS

109

But Webster’s hat was still in the ring, and cries
from without told that the battle had been
joined once more on the lawn.

Lady Widdrington stood appalled. In the
agony of beholding her pet so manifestly getting
the loser’s end she had forgotten her matrimonial
plans. She was no longer the calm, purposeful
woman who intended to lead the Bishop to the
altar if she had to use chloroform; she was an
outraged cat-lover, and she faced him with
blazing eyes.

“ What,” she demanded, “ is the meaning of
this ? ”

The Bishop was still labouring under obvious
excitement.

“ That beastly animal of yours asked for it,
and did Webster give it to him ! ”

“ Did he ! ” Sciid Lancelot. “ That corkscrew
punch with the left ! ”

“ That sort of quick upper-cut with the right ! ”
cried the Bishop.

“ There isn’t a cat in London that could beat
him.”

“ In London ? ” said the Bishop warmly.

‘ In the whole of England. O admirable
Webster ! ”

Lady Widdrington stamped a furious foot

“ I insist that you destroy that cat ! ”

“ Which cat ? ”

MULLINER NIGHTS

no

“ That cat,” said Lady Widdrington, pointing.

Webster was standing on, the window-sill. He
was panting slightly, and his ear w^s in worse
repair than ever, but on his face was the satisfied
smile of a victor. He moved his head from side
to side, as if looking for the microphone through
which his public expected him to speak a modest
word or two.

“ I demand that that savage animal be
destroyed,” said Lady Widdrington.

The Bishop met her eye steadily.

“ Madam,” he replied, “ I shall sponsor no
such scheme.”

“ You refuse ? ”

“ Most certainly I refuse. Never have I
esteemed Webster so highly as at this moment.
I consider him a public benefactor, a selfless
altruist. For years every right-thinking person
must have yearned to handle that inexpressibly
abominable cat of yours as Webster has just
handled him, and I have no feelings towards
him but those of gratitude and admiration. I
intend, indeed, personally and with my own
hands to give him a good plate of fish.”

Lady Widdrington drew in her breath sharply.

“ You will not do it here,” she said.

She pressed the bell.

“ Fotheringay,” she said !n a tense, cold voice,
as the butler appeared, ** the Bishop is leaving

CATS WILL BE CATS III

US to-night. Please sec that his bags arc packed
for the six-forty-one.”

She swept from the room. The Bishop turned
to Lancelot with a benevolent smile.

“ It will just give me nice time,” he said, “ to
write you that cheque, my boy.”

He stooped and gathered Webster into his
arms, and Lancelot, after one quick look at
them, stole silently out. This sacred moment
was not for his eyes.

IV

THE KNIGHTLT QUEST OF MERVTN

S OME sort of smoking-concert seemed to
be in progress in the large room across
the passage from the bar-parlour of the
Anglers’ Rest, and a music-loving Stout and
Mild had left the door open, the better to enjoy
the entertainment. By this means we had been
privileged to hear Kipling’s “ Mandalay,” “ I’ll
Sing Thee Songs of Araby,” “ The Midshipmite,”
and “ Ho, Jolly Jenkin ! ” : and now the piano
began to tinkle again and a voice broke into a
less familiar number.

The words came to us faintly, but clearly ;

The days of Chivalry are dead,

Of which in stories I have read.

When knights were bold and acted kind of
scrappy ;

They us^ to take a lot of pains
And fight all day to please the Janes,

And if their dame was tickled they was happy.

THE KNIGHTLT QUEST OF MERVTN II5

But now the men are mild and meek ;

They seem to have a yellow streak ;

They never lay for other guys, to flatten ’em :
They think they’ve done a darned fine thing
If they just buy the girl a ring
Of imitation diamonds and platinum.

“ Oh, it makes me sort of sad

To think about Sir Galahad

And all the knights of that romantic day :

To amuse a girl and charm her
They would climb into their armour
And jump into the fray :

They called her ‘ Lady love,’

They used to wear her little glove,

And everything that she said went :

For those were the days when a lady was a lady
And a gent was a perfect gent.”

A Ninepennyworth of Sherry sighed.

True,” he murmured. “ Very true.”

The singer continued ;

“ Some night when they sat down to dine.

Sir Claude would say : ‘ That girl of mine
Makes every woman jealous when she sees her.’
Then someone else would shout : ‘ Behave,

Thou malapert and scurvy knave.

Or I will smite thee one upon the beczer ! *

MULLINER NIGHTS

114

And then next morning in the lists
They’d take their lances in their fists
And mount a pair of chargers, highly mettled :
And when Sir Claude, so fair and young.

Got punctured in the leg or lung.

They looked upon the argument as settled.”

The Ninepennyworth of Sherry sighed again.

“ He’s right,” he said. “ We live in degenerate
days, gentlemen. Where now is the fine old
tradition of derring-do ? Where,” demanded
the Ninepennyworth of Sherry with modest
fervour, “ shall we find in these prosaic modern
times the spirit that made the knights of old go
through perilous adventures and brave dreadful
dangers to do their lady’s behest ? ”

“ In the Mulliner family,” said Mr. Mulliner,
pausing for a moment from the sipping of his
hot Scotch and lemon, “ In the clan to which
I have the honour to belong, the spirit to which
you allude still flourishes in all its pristine
vigour. I can scarcely exemplify this better
than by relating the story of my cousin’s son,
Mervyn, and the strawberries.”

” But I want to listen to the concert,” pleaded
a Rum and Milk. “ I just heard the curate
clear his throat. That always means * Dangerous
Dan McGrew.’ ”

“The story,” repeated Mr. Mulliner with

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVTN II5

quiet firmness, as he closed the door, “ of my
cousin’s son, Mervyn, and the strawberries.”

In the circles in which the two moved (said Mr.
Mulliner) it had often been debated whether my
cousin’s son, Mervyn, was a bigger chump than
my nephew Archibald — the one who, if you recall,
was so good at imitating a hen laying an egg.
Some took one side, some the other ; but, though
the point still lies open, there is no doubt that
young Mervyn was quite a big enough chump
for everyday use. And it was this quality in
him that deterred Clarice Mallaby from consent-
ing to become his bride.

He discovered this one night when, as they
were dancing at the Restless Cheese, he put the
thing squarely up to her, not mincing his words.

“ Tell me, Clarice,” he said, “ why is it that
you spurn a fellow’s suit ? I can’t for the life of
me see why you won’t consent to marry a chap.
It isn’t as if I hadn’t asked you often enough.
Playing fast and loose with a good man’s love
is the way I look at it.”

And he gazed at her in a way that was partly
melting and partly suggestive of the dominant
male. And Clarice Mallaby gave one of those
light, tinkling laughs and replied :

“ Well, if you really want to know, you’re such
an ass.”

Il6 MULLINER NIGHTS

Mervyn could make nothing of this.

“ An ass ? How do you mean an ass ? Do
you mean a silly ass ? ”

“ I mean a goof,” said the girl. “ A gump. A
poop. A nitwit and a returned empty. Your
name came up the other day in the course of
conversation at home, and mother said you were
a vapid and irreflective guf&n, totally lacking in
character and purpose.”

“ Oh ? ” said Mervyn. She did, did she ? ”
“ She did. And while it isn’t often that I
think along the same lines as mother, there —
for once — I consider her to have hit the bull’s-eye,
rung the bell, and to be entitled to a cigar or
coco-nut, according to choice. It seemed to me
what they call the mot juste,

“ Indeed ? ” said Mervyn, nettled. “ Well,
let me tell you something. When it comes to
discussing brains, your mother, in my opinion,
would do better to recede modestly into the
background and not try to set herself up as an
authority.'^ I strongly suspect her of being the
woman who was seen in Charing Cross Station
the other day, asking a porter if he could direct
her to Charing Cross Station. And, in the
second place,” said Mervyn, “ I’ll show you if I
haven’t got character and purpose. Set me some
quest, like the knights of old, and see how quick
I’ll deliver the goods as per esteemed order.”

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVTN II7

“ How do you mean — a quest ? ”

“ Why, bid me do something for you, or get
something for you, or biff somebody in the eye
for you. You know the procedure.”

Clarice thought for a moment. Then she said :

“ All my life I’ve wanted to eat strawberries in
the middle of winter. Get me a basket of
strawberries before the end of the month and
we’ll take up this matrimonial proposition of
yours in a spirit of serious research.”

“ Strawberries ? ” said Mervyn.

“ Strawberries.”

Mervyn gulped a little.

“ Strawberries ? ”

“ Strawberries.”

“ But, I say, dash it ! Strawberries ? ”

“ Strawberries,” said Clarice.

And then at last Mervyn, reading between the
lines, saw that what she wanted was strawberries.
And how he was to get any in December was
more than he could have told you.

“ I could do you oranges,” he said.

“ Strawberries.”

“ Or nuts. You wouldn’t prefer a nice nut ? ”

“ Strawberries,” said the girl firmly. “ And
you’re jolly lucky, my lad, not to be sent off after
the Holy Grail or something, or told to pluck me a
sprig of edelweiss from the top of the Alps. Mind
you. I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying no.

MULLINER NIGHTS

1X8

but this I will say — that if you bring me that
basket of strawberries in the stated time, I shall
know that there’s more in you thhn sawdust —
which the casual observer wouldn’t believe —
and I will reopen your case and examine it
thoroughly in the light of the fresh evidence.
Whereas, if you fail to deliver the fruit, I shall
know that mother was right, and you can jolly
well make up your mind to doing without my
society from now on.”

Here she stopped to take in breath, and Mervyn,
after a lengthy pause, braced himself up and
managed to utter a brave laugh. It was a little
roopy, if not actually hacking, but he did it.

“ Right-ho,” he said. “ Right-ho. If that’s
the way you feel, well, to put it in a nutshell,
right-ho'.”

My cousin’s son Mervyn passed a restless night
that night, tossing on the pillow not a little, and
feverishly at that. If this girl had been a shade
less attractive, he told himself, he would have
sent her a telegram telling her to go to the
dickens. But, as it so happened, she was not ;
so the only thing that remained for him to do
was to pull up the old socks and take a stab at
the programme, as outlined. And he was sipping
his morning cup of tea, when something more
or less resembling an idea came to him.

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVYN H9

He reasoned thus. The wise man, finding
himself in a dilemma, consults an expert. If,
for example, some knotty point of the law has
arisen, he will proceed immediately in search of a
legal expert, bring out his eight-and-six, and put
the problem up to him. If it is a cross-word
puzzle and he is stuck for the word in three
letters, beginning with E and ending with U
and meaning “ large Australian bird,” he places
the matter in the hands of the editor of the
Encyclopedia Britannica.

And, similarly, when the question confronting
him is how to collect strawberries in December,
the best plan is obviously to seek out that one of
his acquaintances who has the most established
reputation for giving expensive parties.

This, Mervyn considered, was beyond a doubt
Oofy Prosser. Thinking back, he could recall a
dozen occasions when he had met chorus-girls
groping their way along the street with a dazed
look in their eyes, and when he had asked them
what the matter was they had explained that
they were merely living over again the exotic
delights of the party Oofy Prosser had given last
night. If anybody knew how to get strawberries
in December, it would be Oofy.

He called, accordingly, at the latter’s apart-
ment, and found him in bed, staring at the
ceiling and moaning in an undertone.

120 MULLINER. NIGHTS

“ Hullo ! “ said Mervyn. “ You look a bit
red-eyed, old corpse.”

“ I feel red-eyed,” said Oofy. “^And I wish,
if it isn’t absolutely necessary, that you wouldn’t
come charging in here early in the morning like
this. By about ten o’clock to-night, I imagine,
if I take great care of myself and keep quite
quiet, I shall once more be in a position to look
at gargoyles without wincing ; but at the
moment the mere sight of your horrible face
gives me an indefinable shuddering feeling.”

Did you have a party last night ? ”

” I did.”

“ I wonder if by any chance you had straw-
berries ? ”

Oofy Prosser gave a sort of quiver and shut his
eyes. He seemed to be wrestling with some power-
ful emotion. Then the spasm passed, and he spoke .

“ Don’t talk about the beastly things,” he said.
” I never want to see strawberries again in my
life. Nor lobster, caviare, pate de fois gras,
prawns in aspic, or anything remotely resembling
Bronx cocktails, Martinis, Side-Cars, Lizard’s
Breaths, All Quiet on the Western Fronts, and
any variety of champagne, whisky, brandy,
chartreuse, benedictine, and curacoa.”

Mervyn nodded sympathetically.

“ I know just how you feel, old man,” he said.
“ And I hate to have to press the point. But I

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVYN III

happen — ^for purposes which I will not reveal —
to require about a dozen strawberries.”

“ Then go and buy them, blast you,” said Oofy,
turning his face to the wall.

“ Can you buy strawberries in December ? ”

“ Certainly. Bellamy’s in Piccadilly have them.”

“ Are they frightfully expensive ? ” asked Mervyn,
feeling in his pocket and fingering the one pound,
two shillings and threepence which had got to last
him to the end of the quarter when his allowance
came in. “ Do they cost a fearful lot ? ”

“ Of course not. They’re dirt cheap.”

Mervyn heaved a relieved sigh.

“ I don’t suppose I pay more than a pound
apiece — or at most, thirty shillings — for mine,” said
Oofy. “ You can get quite a lot for fifty quid.”

Mervyn uttered a hollow groan.

“ Don’t gargle,” said Oofy. “ Or, if you must
gargle, gargle outside.”

” Fifty quid ? ” said Mervyn.

“ Fifty or a hundred, I forget which. My man
attends to these things.”

Mervyn looked at him in silence. He was
trying to decide whether the moment had arrived
to put Oofy into circulation.

In the matter of borrowing money, my cousin’s
son, Mervyn, was shrewd and level-headed. He
had vision. At an early date he had come to
the conclusion that it would be foolish to fritter

122 MULLINER NIGHTS

away a fellow like Oofy in a series of ten bobs and
quids. The prudent man, he felt, when he has
an Oofy Prosser on his list, nurses him along till
he feels the time is ripe for one of those quick
Send-me-two-hundred-by-messenger-old-man-or-
my-head-goes-in-the-gas-oven touches. For years
accordingly, he had been saving Oofy up for some
really big emergency.

And the point he had to decide was : Would
there ever be a bigger emergency than this ?
That was what he asked himself.

Then it came home to him that Oofy was not
in the mood. The way it seemed to Mervyn was
that, if Oofy’s mother had crept to Oofy’s bedside
at this moment and tried to mace him for as much
as five bob, Oofy would have risen and struck her
with the.bromo-seltzer bottle.

With a soft sigh, therefore, he gave up the idea
and oozed out of the room and downstairs into
Piccadilly.

Piccadilly looked pretty mouldy to Mervyn.
It was full, he tells me, of people and other foul
things. He wandered along for a while in a
distrait way, and then suddenly out of the corner
of his eye he became aware that he was in the
presence of fruit. A shop on the starboard side
was full of it, and he discovered that he was
standing outside Bellamy’s.

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVYN I25

And what is more, there, nestling in a bcisket
in the middle of a lot of cotton- wool and blue
paper, was a platoon of strawberries.

And, as he gazed at them, Mervyn began to see
how this thing could be worked with the mini-
mum of discomfort and the maximum of profit
to all concerned. He had just remembered that
his maternal uncle Joseph had an account at
Bellamy’s.

The next moment he had bounded through the
door and was in conference with one of the
reduced duchesses who do the fruit-selling at this
particular emporium. This one, Mervyn tells
me, was about six feet high and looked down at
him with large, haughty eyes in a derogatory
manner — being, among other things, dressed
from stem to stern in black satin. He was
conscious of a slight chill, but he carried on
according to plan.

“ Good morning,” he said, switching on a
smile and then switching it off again as he caught
her eye. “ Do you sell fruit ? ”

If she had answered “ No,” he would, of
course, have been nonplussed. But she did not.
She inclined her head proudly.

“ Quate,” she said.

“That’s fine,” said Mervyn heartily.
“Because fruit happens to be just what I’m after.”"

“ Quate.”

MULLINER NIGHTS

124

“ I want that basket of strawberries in the
window.”

“ Quate.”

She reached for them and started to wrap
them up. She did not seem to enjoy doing it.
As she tied the string, her brooding look deep-
ened. Mervyn thinks she may have had some
great love tragedy in her life.

“ Send them to the Earl of Blotsam, 66a,
Berkeley Square,” said Mervyn, alluding to his
maternal uncle Joseph.

“ Quate.”

“ On second thoughts,” said Mervyn, “ no.
ril take them with me. Save trouble. Hand
them over, and send the bill to Lord Blotsam.”

This, naturally, was the crux or nub of the
whole enterprise. And to Mervyn’s concern, his
suggestion- did not seem to have met with the
ready acceptance for which he had hoped. He
had looked for the bright smile, the courteous
inclination of the head. Instead of which, the
girl looked doubtful.

“ You desi-ah to remove them in person ? ”

“ Quate,” said Mervyn.

“ Podden me,” said the girl, suddenly dis-
appearing.

She was not away long. In fact, Mervyn,
roaming hither and thither about the shop, had
barely had time to eat three or four dates and a

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVYN I25

custard apple, when she was with him once
more. And now she was wearing a look of
definite disapproval, like a duchess who has
found half a caterpillar in the castle salad.

His lordship informs me that he desi-ahs no
strawberries.”

“ Eh ? ”

“ I have been in telephonic communication
with his lordship and he states explicitly that he
does not desi-ah strawberries.”

Mervyn gave a little at the knees, but he came
back stoutly.

“ Don’t you listen to what he says,” he urged.
“ He’s always kidding. That’s the sort of fellow
he is. Just a great big happy schoolboy. Of
course he desi-ahs strawberries. He told me so
himself. I’m his nephew.”

Good stuff, he felt, but it did not seem to be
getting over. He caught a glimpse of the girl’s
fkce, and it was definitely cold and hard and
proud. However, he gave a careless laugh, just
to show that his heart was in the right place, and
seized the basket.

“ Ha, ha ! ” he tittered lightly, and started for
the street at something midway between a
saunter and a gallop.

And he had not more than reached the open
spaces when he heard the girl give tongue behind
him.

MULLINER NIGHTS

126

“ EEEE— EEEE— EEEE— EEEE-EEEEEE-
EEEEE ! ” she said, in substance.

Now, you must remember that this took
place round about the hour of noon, when every
young fellow is at his lowest and weakest and the
need for the twelve o’clock bracer has begun to sap
his morale pretty considerably. With a couple of
quick cold ones under his vest, Mervyn would, no
doubt, have faced the situation and carried it off
with an air. He would have raised his eyebrows.
He would have been nonchalant and lit a Murad.
But, coming on him in his reduced condition, this
fearful screech unnerved him completely.

The duchess had now begun to cry “ Stop
thief ! ” and Mervyn, most injudiciously, in-
stead of keeping his head and leaping carelessly
into a passing taxi, made the grave strategic
error of picking up his feet with a jerk and
starting to run along Piccadilly.

Well, naturally, that did* him no good at all.
Eight hundred people appeared from nowhere,
willing hands gripped his collar and the seat of
his trousers, and the next thing he knew he was
cooling off in Vine Street Police Station.

After that, everytliing was more or less of a
blurr. The scene seemed suddenly to change to
a police-court, in which he was confronted by a
magistrate who looked like an owl with a dash
of weasel blood in him.

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVTN IZJ

A dialogue then took place, of which all he
recalls is this :

Policeman : ’Earing cries of “ Stop thief ! ”
your worship, and observing the accused running
very ’earty, I apprehended ’im.

Magistrate : How did he appear, when
apprehended ?

Policeman : V ery apprehensive, your worship.

Magistrate : You mean he had a sort of
pinched look ?

(^Laughter in court.)

Policeman : It then transpired that ’e ’ad
been attempting to purloin strawberries.

Magistrate : He seems to have got the
raspberry.

{Laughter in court.)

Well, what have you to say, young man ?

Mervyn ; Oh, ah !

Magistrate : More “ owe ” than “ ah,” I
fear.

{Laiightet in court, in which his worship joined.)

Ten pounds or fourteen days.

Well, you can see how extremely unpleasant
this must have been for my cousin’s son. Con-
sidered purely from the dramatic angle, the
magistrate had played him right off the stage,
hogging all the comedy and getting the sympathy

MULLINER NIGHTS

izi

of the audience from the start ; and, apart from
that, here he was, nearing the end of the quarter,
with all his allowance spent except one pound,
two and threepence, suddenly called upon to pay
ten pounds or go to durance vile for a matter of
two weeks.

There was only one course before him. His
sensitive soul revolted at the thought of languish-
ing in a dungeon for a solid fortnight, so it was
imperative that he raise the cash somewhere.
And the only way of raising it that he could think
of was to apply to his uncle. Lord Blotsam.

So he sent a messenger round to Berkeley
Square, explaining that he was in jail and hoping
his uncle was the same, and presently a letter
was brought back by the butler, containing
ten pounds in postal orders, the Curse of the
Blotsamsj a third-class ticket to Blotsam Regis
in Shropshire and instructions that, as soon
as they smote the fetters •from his wrists, he
was to take the first train there and go and
stay at Blotsam Castle till further notice.

Because at the castle, his uncle said in a power-
ful passage, even a blasted pimply pop-eyed
good-for-nothing scallywag and nincompoop like
his nephew couldn’t get into mischief and dis-
grace the family name.

And in this, Mervyn tells me, there was a good
deal of rugged sense. Blotsam Castle, a noble

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVYN I29

pile, is situated at least half a dozen miles from
anywhere, and the only time anybody ever
succeeded in disgracing the family name, while
in residence, was back in the reign of Edward the
Confessor, when the then Earl ofBlotsam, having
lured a number of neighbouring landowners into
the banqueting hall on the specious pretence of
standing them mulled sack, had proceeded to
murder one and all with a battle-axe — sub-
sequently cutting their heads off and — ^in rather
loud taste — ^sticking them on spikes along the
outer battlements.

So Mervyn went down to Blotsam Regis and
started to camp at the castle, and it was not long,
he tells me, before he began to find the time
hanging a little heavy on his hands. For a
couple of days he managed to endure the
monotony, occupying himself in carving the
girl’s initials on the immemorial elms with a heart
round them. But on the third morning, having
broken his Boy Scout pocket-knife, he was at
something of a loose end. And to fill in the time he
started on a moody stroll through the messuages
and pleasances, feeling a good deal cast down.

After pacing hither and thither for a while,
thinking of the girl Clarice, he came to a series of
hothouses. And, it being extremely cold, with an
east wind that went through his plus-fours like a

MULLINER NIGHTS

130

javelin, he thought it would make an agreeable
change if he were to go inside where it was warm
and smoke two or perhaps three cigarettes.

And, scarcely had he got past the door, when
he found he was almost entirely surrounded by
strawberries. There they were, scores of them,
all hot and juicy.

For a moment, he tells me, Mervyn had a sort
of idea that a miracle had occurred. He seemed
to remember a similar thing having happened to
the Israelites in the desert — that time, he re-
minded me, when they were all saying to each
other how well a spot of manna would go down
and what a dtished shame it was they hadn’t any
manna and that was the slipshod way the com-
missariat departmentran things and they wouldn’t
be surprised if it wasn’t a case of graft in high
places, and then suddenly out of a blue sky all
the manna they could do with and enough over
for breakfast next day.

Well, to be brief, that was the view which
Mervyn took of the matter in the first flush of his
astonishment.

Then he remembered that his uncle always
opened the castle for the Christmas festivities, and
these strawberries were, no doubt, intended for
Exhibit A at some forthcoming rout or merry-
making.

Well, after that, of course, everything was

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVYN I5I

simple. A child would have known what to do.
Hastening back to the house, Mervyn returned
with a cardboard box and, keeping a keen eye
out for the head-gardener, hurried in, selected
about two dozen of the finest specimens, placed
them in the box, ran back to the house again,
reached for the railway guide, found that there
was a train leaving for London in an hour,
changed into town clothes, seized his top hat,
borrowed the stable-boy’s bicycle, pedalled to
the station, and about four hours later was
mounting the front-door steps of Clarice Mal-
laby’s house in Eaton Square with the box
tucked under his arm.

No, that is wrong. The box was not actually
tucked under his arm, because he had left it in
the train. Except for that, he had carried the
thing through without a hitch.

Sturdy common sense is always a quality of the
Mulliners, even of the less mentally gifted of the
family. It was obvious to Mervyn that no useful
end was to be gained by ringing the bell and
rushing into the girl’s presence, shouting “ See
what I’ve brought you ! ”

On the other hand, what to do ? He was
feeling somewhat unequal to the swirl of events.

Once, he tells me, some years ago, he got
involved in some amateur theatricals, to play the

MULLINER NIGHTS

132

role of a butler : and his part consisted of the
following lines and business :

{Enter Jorkins, carrying telegram on salver.)

JoRKiNS : A telegram, m’lady.

{Exit Jorkins)

and on the night in he came, full of confidence,
and, having said : “ A telegram, m’lady,” ex-
tended an empty salver towards the heroine,
who, having been expecting on the strength of
the telegram to clutch at her heart and say :
“ My God ! ” and tear open the envelope and
crush it in nervous fingers and fall over in a
swoon, was considerably taken aback, not to say
perturbed.

He felt now as he had felt then.

Still, he had enough sense left to see the way
out. After a couple of turns up and down the
south side of Eaton Square, he came — rather
shrewdly, I must confess — to the conclusion that
the only person who could help him in this
emergency was Oofy Prosser.

The way Mervyn sketched out the scenario in
the rough, it all looked pretty plain sailing. He
would go to Oofy, whom, as I told you, he had
been saving up for years, and with one single
impressive gesture get into his ribs for about
twenty quid.

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVYN I35

He would be losing money on the deal, of
course, because he had always had Oofy sched-
uled for at least fifty. But that could not be
helped.

Then off to Bellamy’s and buy strawberries.
He did not exactly relish the prospect of meeting
the black satin girl again, but when love is
calling these things have to be done.

He found Oofy at home, and plunged into the
agenda without delay.

“ Hullo, Oofy, old man ! ” he said. “ How
are you, Oofy, old man ? I say, Oofy, old man,
I do like that tie you’re wearing. What I call
something like a tie. Quite the snappiest thing
I’ve seen for years and years and years and years.
I wish I could get ties like that. But then, of
course, I haven’t your exquisite taste. What I’ve
always said about you, Oofy, old man, and what
I always will say, is that you have the most
extraordinary flair — it amounts to genius — in the
selection of ties. But, then, one must bear in
mind that anything would look well on you,
because you have such a clean-cut, virile profile.
I met a man the other day who said to me : ‘ I
didn’t know Ronald Colman was in England.’
And I said : ‘ He isn’t.’ And he said : ‘ But I
saw you talking to him outside the Blotto
Kitten.’ And I said : * That wasn’t Ronald
Colman. That was my old pal — the best pal

MULLINER NIGHTS

134

any man ever had — Oofy Prosser.’ And he
said : ‘ Well, I never saw such a remarkable
resemblance.’ And I said : ‘Yes, there is a
great resemblance, only, of course, Oofy is much
the better-looking.’ And this fellow said : ‘ Oofy
Prosser? Is that the Oofy Prosser, the man
whose name you hear everywhere ? ’ And I
said : ‘ Yes, and I’m proud to call him my
friend. I don’t suppose,’ I said, ‘ there’s another
fellow in London in such demand. Duchesses
clamour for him, and, if you ask a princess to
dinner, you have to add : “ To meet Oofy
Prosser,” or she won’t come. This,’ I explained,
‘ is because, in addition to being the handsomest
and best-dressed man in Mayfair, he is famous
for his sparkling wit and keen — but always
kindly — ^repartee. And yet, in spite of all, he
remains simple, unspoilt, unaffected.’ Will you
lend me twenty quid, Oofy, old man ? ”

“ No,” said Oofy Prosser.

Mervyn paled.

“ What did you say ? ”

“ I said No.”

“ No ? ”

“ N — ^ruddy — o ! ” said Oofy firmly.

Mervyn clutched at the mantelpiece.

“ But, Oofy, old man, I need the money — need
it sorely.”

“ I don’t care.”

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVTN I3J

It seemed to Mervyn that the only thing to do
was to tell all. Clearing his throat, he started in
at the beginning. He sketched the course of his
great love in burning words, and brought the
story up to the point where the girl had placed
her order for strawberries.

“ She must be cuckoo,” said Oofy Prosser.

Mervyn was respectful, but firm.

“ She isn’t cuckoo,” he said. “ I have felt all
along that the incident showed what a spiritual
nature she has. I mean to say, reaching out
yearningly for the unattainable and all that sort
of thing, if you know what I mean. Anyway,
the broad, basic point is that she wants straw-
berries, and I’ve got to collect enough money to
get her them.”

“ Who is this half-wit ? ” asked Oofy.

Mervyn told him, and Oofy seemed rather
impressed.

“ I know her.” He mused awhile. “ Dashed
pretty girl.”

“ Lovely,” said Mervyn. “ What eyes I ”

“ Yes.”

“ What hair ! ”

“ Yes.”

“ What a figure ! ”

“ Yes,” said Oofy. “ I always think she’s one
of the prettiest girls in London.”

“ Absolutely,” said Mervyn. “ Then, on

UULLINER NIGHTS

136

second thoughts, old pal, you will lend me
twenty quid to buy her strawberries ? ”

“ No,” said Oofy.

And Mervyn could not shift him. In the end
he gave it up.

“ Very well,” he said. “ Oh, very well. If
you won’t, you won’t. But, Alexander Prosser,”
proceeded Mervyn, with a good deal of dignity,
“just let me tell you this. I wouldn’t be seen
dead in a tie like that beastly thing you’re wear-
ing. I don’t like your profile. Your hair is
getting thin on the top. And I heard a certain
prominent society hostess say the other day that
the great drawback to living in London was that
a woman couldn’t give so much as the simplest
luncheon-party without suddenly finding that
that appalling man Prosser — I quote her words —
had wriggled out of the woodwork and was in her
midst. Prosser, I wish you a very good afternoon ! ’ ’

Brave words, of course, but, when you came
right down to it, they could not be said to have
got him anywhere. After the first thrill of telling
Oofy what he thought of him had died away,
Mervyn realized that his quandary was now
greater than ever. Where was he to look for aid
and comfort? He had friends, of course, but
the best of them wasn’t good for more than an
occasional drink or possibly a couple of quid.

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVYN I37

and what use was that to a man who needed at
least a dozen strawberries at a pound apiece ?

Extremely bleak the world looked to my
cousin’s unfortunate son, and he was in sombre
mood as he wandered along Piccadilly. As he
surveyed the passing populace, he suddenly
realized, he tells me, what these Bolshevist blokes
were driving at. They had spotted — as he had
spotted now — that what was wrong with the
world was that all the cash seemed to be centred
in the wrong hands and needed a lot of broad-
minded redistribution.

Where money was concerned, he perceived,
merit counted for nothing. Money was too apt
to be collared by some rotten bounder or
bounders, while the good and deserving man was
left standing on the outside, looking in. The
sight of all those expensive cars rolling along,
crammed to the bulwarks with overfed males and
females with fur coats and double chins, made
him feel, he tells me, that he wanted to buy a red
tie and a couple of bombs and start the Social
Revolution. If Stalin had come along at that
moment, Mervyn would have shaken him by the
hand.

Well, there is, of course, only one thing for a
young man to do when he feels like that. Mervyn
hurried along to the club and in rapid succession
drank three Martini cocktails.

MULLINER NIGHTS

138

The treatment was effective, as it always is.
Gradually the stem, censorious mood passed, and
he began to feel an optimistic glow. As the
revivers slid over the larynx, he saw that all was
not lost. He perceived that he had been leaving
out of his reckoning that sweet, angelic pity
which is such a characteristic of woman.

Take the case of a knight of old, he meant to
say. Was anyone going to tell him that if a
knight of old had been sent off by a damsel on
some fearfully tricky quest and had gone through
all sorts of perils and privations for her sake, facing
dragons in black satin and risking going to chokey
and what not, the girl would have given him the
bird when he got back, simply because — looking
at the matter from a severely technical standpoint
— he had failed to bring home the gravy ?

Absofutely not, Mervyn considered. She
would have been most awfully braced with him
for putting up such a good show and would have
comforted and cosseted him.

This girl Clarice, he felt, was bound to do the
same, so obviously the move now was to toddle
along to Eaton Square again and explain matters to
her. So he gave his hat a brush, flicked a spot of
dust from his coat-sleeve, and shot off in a tzixi.

All during the drive he was rehearsing what he
would say to her, and it sounded pretty good to
him. In his mind’s eye he could see the tears

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVYN I59

coming into her gentle eyes as he told her about
the Arm of the Law gripping his trouser-seat.
But, when he arrived, a hitch occurred. There
was a stage wait. The butler at Eaton Square
told him the girl was dressing.

“ Say that Mr. Mulliner has called,” said
Mervyn.

So the butler went upstairs, and presently from
aloft there came the clear penetrating voice of his
loved one telling the butler to bung Mr. Mulliner
into the drawing-room and lock up all the silver.

And Mervyn went into the drawing-room and
settled down to wait.

It was one of those drawing-rooms where there
is not a great deal to entertain and amuse the
visitor. Mervyn tells me that he got a good
laugh out of a photograph of the girl’s late father
on the mantelpiece — a heavily-whiskered old
gentleman who reminded him of a burst horse-
hair sofa — but the rest of the appointments were
on the dull side. They consisted of an album of
views of Italy and a copy of Indian Love Lyrics
bound in limp cloth : and it was not long before
he began to feel a touch of ennui.

He polished his shoes with one of the sofa-
cushions, and took his hat from the table where
he had placed it and gave it another brush : but
after that there seemed to be nothing in the way
of intellectual occupation offering itself, so he

MULLINER NIGHTS

140

just leaned back in a chair and unhinged his
lower jaw and let it droop, and sank into a sort
of coma. And it was while he was still in this
trance that he was delighted to hear a dog-fight
in progress in the street. He went to the window
and looked out, but the thing was apparently
taking place somewhere near the front door, and
the top of the porch hid it from him.

Now, Mervyn hated to miss a dog-fight. Many
of his happiest hours had been spent at dog-fights.
And this one appeared from the sound of it to be
on a more or less major scale. He ran down the
stairs and opened the front door.

As his trained senses had told him, the en-
counter was being staged at the foot of the steps.
He stood in the open doorway and drank it in.
He had always maintained that you got the best
dog-fights down in the Eaton Square neighbour-
hood, because there tough animals from the
King’s Road, Chelsea, district, were apt to
wander in — dogs who had trained on gin and flat-
irons at the local public-houses and could be
relied on to give of their best.

The present encounter bore out this view.
It was between a sort of consommi of mastiff and
Irish terrier, on the one hand, and, on the other,
a long-haired macedoine of about seven breeds of
dog who had an indescribable raffish look, as
if he had been mixing with the artist colony

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVYN I41

down by the river. For about five minutes it
was as inspiring a contest as you could have
wished to see ; but at the end of that time it
stopped suddenly, both principals simultaneously
observing a cat at an area gate down the road
and shaking hands hastily and woofing after
her.

Mervyn was not a little disappointed at this
abrupt conclusion to the entertainment, but it
was no use repining. He started to go back into
the house and was just closing the front door, when
a messenger-boy appeared, carrying a parcel.

“ Sign, please,” said the messenger-boy.

The lad’s mistake was a natural one. Finding
Mervyn standing in the doorway without a hat, he
had assumed him to be the butler. He pushed the
parcel into his hand, made him sign a yellow paper,
and went off, leaving Mervyn with the parcel.

And Mervyn, glancing at it, saw that it was
addressed to the girl — Clarice.

But it was not this that made him reel where
he stood. What made him reel where he stood
was the fact that on the paper outside the thing
was a label with “ Bellamy & Co., Bespoke
Fruitists ” on it. And he was convinced, prod-
ding it, that there was some squashy substance
inside which certainly was not apples, oranges,
nuts, bananas, or anything of that nature.

Mervyn lowered his shapely nose and gave a

MULLINER NIGHTS

142

good hard sniff at the parcel. And, having
done so, he reeled where he stood once more.

A frightful suspicion had shot through him.

It was not that my cousin’s son was gifted be-
yond the ordinary in the qualities that go to make a
successful detective. You would not have found
him deducing anything much from footprints or
cigar-ash. In fact, if this parcel had contained
cigar-ash, it would have meant nothing to him.
But in the circumstances anybody with his special
knowledge would have been suspicious.

For consider the facts. His sniff had told him
that beneath the outward wrapping of paper lay
strawberries. And the only person beside him-
self who knew that the girl wanted strawberries
Wcis Oofy Prosser. About the only man in
London able to buy strawberries at that time of
year was Oofy. And Oofy’s manner, he recalled,
when they were talking about the girl’s beauty and
physique generally, had been furtive and sinister.

To rip open the paper, therefore, and take a
look at the enclosed card was with Mervyn
Mulliner the work of a moment.

And, sure enough, it was as he had foreseen.
** Alexander C. Prosser ” was the name on the
card, and Mervyn tells me he wouldn’t be a bit
surprised if the C. didn’t stand for “ Clarence.”

His first feeling, he tells me, as he stood there
staring at that card, was one of righteous indig-

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVYN I45

nation at the thought that any such treacherous,
double-crossing hound as Oofy Prosser should
have been permitted to pollute the air of London,
W.i, all these years. To refuse a fellow twenty
quid with one hand, and then to go and send
his girl strawberries with the other, struck Mervyn
as about as low-down a bit of homswoggling as
you could want.

He burned with honest wrath. And he was
still burning when the last cocktail he had had
at the club, which had been lying low inside him
all this while, suddenly came to life and got action.
Quite unexpectedly, he tells me, it began to frisk
about like a young lamb, until it leaped into his
head and gave him the idea of a lifetime.

What, he asked himself, was the matter with
suppressing this card, freezing on to the berries,
and presenting them to the girl with a modest
flourish as coming from M. Mulliner, Esq ?
And, he answered himself, there was abso-bally-
nothing the matter with it. It was a jolly sound
scheme and showed what three medium dry
Martinis could do.

He quivered all over with joy and elation.
Standing there in the hall, he felt that there was
a Providence, after all, which kept an eye on
good men and saw to it that they came out on top
in the end. In fact, he felt so extremely elated
that he burst into song. And he had not got

MULLINER NIGHTS

144

much beyond the first high note when he heard
Clarice Mallaby giving tongue from upstairs.

“ Stop it ! “

“ What did you say ? ” said MerVyn.

“ I said ‘ Stop it ! * The cat’s downstairs with
a headache, trying to rest.”

“ I say,” said Mervyn, “ are you going to be
long ? ”

“ How do you mean — ^long ? ”

“ Long dressing. Because I’ve something I
want to show you.”

“ What?”

“ Oh, nothing much,” said Mervyn carelessly.
“ Nothing particular. Just a few assorted
strawberries.”

“ Eek ! ” said the girl. “ You don’t mean
you’ve really got them ? ”

“ Got them ? ” said Mervyn. “ Didn’t I say
I would ? ”

“ I’ll be down in just one minute,” said the
girl.

Well, you know what girls are. The minute
stretched into five minutes, and the five minutes
into a quarter of an hour, and Mervyn made
the tour of the drawing-room, and looked at the
photograph of her late father, and picked up the
album of Views of Italy, and opened Indian
Love Lyrics at page forty-three and shut it again,
and took up the cushion and gave his shoes

THE KNIGHTLY QUEST OF MERVTN I45

another rub, and brushed his hat once more,
and still she didn’t come.

And so, by way of something else to do, he
started brooding on the strawberries for a space.

Considered purely as strawberries, he tells
me, they were a pretty rickety collection, not
to say spavined. They were an unhealthy
whitish-pink in colour and looked as if they had
just come through a lingering illness which had
involved a good deal of blood-letting by means
of leeches.

“ They don’t look much,” said Mervyn to
himself.

Not that it really mattered, of course, because
all the girl had told him to do was to get her
strawberries, and nobody could deny that these
were strawberries. G.3 though they might be,
they were genuine strawberries, and from that
fact there was no getting away.

Still, he did not want the dear little soul to be
disappointed.

“ I wonder if they have any flavour at all?”
said Mervyn to himself.

Well, the first one had not. Nor had the
second. The third was rather better. And the
fourth was quite juicy. And the best of all,
oddly enough, was the last one in the basket.

He was just finishing it when Clarice Mallaby
came running in.

MULLINER NIGHTS

146

Well, Mervyn tried to pass it off, of course.
But his efforts were not rewarded with any great
measure of success. In fact, he tells me that he did
not get beyond a tentative “ Oh, I s^ . . And
the upshot of the whole matter was that the girl
threw him out into the winter evening without so
much as giving him a chance to take his hat.

Nor had he the courage to go back and fetch
it later, for Clarice Mallaby stated specifically
that if he dared to show his ugly face at the house
again the butler had instructions to knock him
down and skin him, and the butler was looking
forward to it, as he had never liked Mervyn.

So there the matter rests. The whole thing
has been a great blow to my cousin’s son, for he
considers — and rightly, I suppose — that, if you
really come down to it, he failed in his quest.
Nevertheless, I think that we must give him credit
for the possession of the old knightly spirit to
which our friend here was alluding just now.

He meant well. He did his best. And even
of a Mulliner more cannot be said than that. '

V

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST

A T the ancient and historic public-school
ZA which stands a mile or two up the river
A. from the Anglers’ Rest there had recently
been a change of headmasters, and our little
group in the bar-parlour, naturally interested,
was discussing the new appointment.

A grizzled Tankard of Stout frankly viewed it
widi concern.

“ Benger ! ” he exclaimed. “ Fancy making
Benger a headmaster.”

“ He has a fine record.”

" Yes, but, dash it, he was at school with me.”

“ One lives these things down in time,” we
urged.

The Tankard said we had missed his point,
which was that he could remember young
Scrubby Benger in an Eton collar with jam on
it, getting properly cursed by the Mathematics
beak for bringing white mice into the form-room.

“ He was a small, fat kid with a pink face,”
proceeded the Tankard. “ I met him again

MULLINER NIGHTS

148

only last July, and he looked just the same. I
can’t see him as a headmaster. I thought they
had to be a hundred years old and seven feet
high, with eyes of flame, and long "white beards.
To me, a headmaster has always been a sort of
blend of Epstein’s Genesis and something out
of the Book of Revelations.”

Mr. Mulliner smiled tolerantly.

“ You left school at an early age, I imagine ? ”

“ Sixteen. I had to go into my uncle’s
business.”

“ Exactly,” said Mr. Mulliner, nodding sagely.
“ You completed your school career, in other
words, before the age at which a boy, coming
into personal relationship with the man up top,
learns to regard him as a guide, philosopher
and friend. The result is that you are suffering
from the well-known Headmaster Fixation or
Phobia — precisely as my nephew Sacheverell did.
A rather delicate youth, he was removed by his
parents from Harborough College shortly after
his fifteenth birthday and educated at home by a
private tutor ; and I have frequently heard him
assert that the Rev. J. G. Smethurst, the ruling
spirit of Harborough, was a man who chewed
broken bottles and devoured his young.”

“ I strongly suspected my headmzister of con-
ducting human sacrifices behind the fives-courts
at the time of the full moon,” said the Tankard.

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST 149

" Men like yourself -^nd my nephew Sacheverell
who leave school early,” said Mr. Mulliner,
“ never wholly lose these poetic boyish fancies.
All their lives, the phobia persists. And some-
times this has curious results — as in the case of
my nephew Sacheverell.”

It was to the terror inspired by his old head-
master (said Mr. Mulliner) that I always attri-
buted my nephew Sacheverell’s extraordinary
mildness and timidity. A nervous boy, the years
seemed to bring him no store of self-confidence.
By the time he arrived at man’s estate, he
belonged definitely to the class of humanity which
never gets a seat on an underground train and
is ill at ease in the presence of butlers, traffic
policemen, and female assistants in post offices.
He was the sort of young fellow at whom people
laugh when the waiter speaks to them in French.

And this was particularly unfortunate, as he
had recently become secretly affianced to Muriel,
only daughter of Lieut.-Colonel Sir Redvers
Branksome, one of the old-school type of squire
and as tough an egg as ever said “ Yoicks ” to a
fox-hound. He had met her while she was on a
visit to an aunt in London, and had endeared
himself to her partly by his modest and diffident
demeanour and partly by doing tricks with a bit
of string, an art at which he was highly proficient.

MULLINER NIGHTS

150

Muriel was one of those hearty, breezy girls
who abound in the hunting counties of England.
Brought up all her life among confident young
men who wore gaiters and smacked them with
riding-crops, she had always yearned subcon-
sciously for something different: and Sacheverell’s
shy, mild, shrinking personality seemed to wake
the maternal in her. He was so weak, so helpless,
that her heart went out to him. Friendship
speedily ripened into love, with the result that
one afternoon my nephew found himself
definitely engaged and faced with the prospect of
breaking the news to the old folks at home.

“ And if you think you’ve got a picnic ahead of
you,” said Muriel, “ forget it. Father’s a gorilla.
I remember when I was engaged to my cousin
Bernard ”

“ When you were what to your what ? ”
gasped Sacheverell.

“ Oh, yes,” said the girl.- “ Didn’t I tell you r
I was engaged once to my cousin Bernard, but
I broke it off because he tried to boss me. A
little too much of the dominant male there was
about old B., and I handed him his hat. Though
we’re still good friends. But what I was saying
was that Bernard used to gulp like a seal and
stand on one leg when father came along. And
he’s in the Guards. That just shows you. How-
ever, we’ll start the thing going. I’ll get you

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST IJI

down to the Towers for a week-end, and we’ll
see what happens.”

If Muriel had hoped that a mutual esteem
would spring up between her father and her
betrothed during this week-end visit, she was
doomed to disappointment. The thing was a
failure from the start. Sacheverell’s host did
him extremely well, giving him the star guest-
room, the Blue Suite, and bringing out the oldest
port for his benefit, but it was plain that he
thought little of the young man. The colonel’s
subjects were sheep (in sickness and in health),
manure, wheat, mangold-wurzels, huntin’,
shootin’ and fishin’ : while Sacheverell was at
his best on Proust, the Russian Ballet, Japanese
prints, and the Influence of James Joyce on the
younger Bloomsbury novelists. There was no
fusion between these men’s souls. Colonel
Branksome did not actually bite Sacheverell in
the leg, but when you had said that you had said
everything.

Muriel was deeply concerned.

“ I’ll tell you what it is. Dogface,” she said, as
she was seeing her loved one to his train on the
Monday, “ we’ve got off on the wrong foot.
The male parent may have loved you at sight,
but, if he did, he took another look and changed
his mind.”

“ I fear we were not exactly en rapport,'' sighed

MULLINER NIGHTS

Sacheverell. “ Apart from the fact that the
mere look of him gave me a strange, sinking
feeling, my conversation seemed to bore him.”

“ You didn’t talk about the right things.”

“ I couldn’t. I know so little of mangold-
wurzels. Manure is a sealed book to me.”

“Just what I’m driving at,” said Muriel.
“ And all that must be altered. Before you spring
the tidings on father, there will have to be a lot
of careful preliminary top-dressing of the soil, if
you follow what I mean. By the time the bell
goes for the second round and old Dangerous
Dan McGrew comes out of his corner at you,
breathing fire, you must have acquired a good
working knowledge of Scientific Agriculture.
That’ll tickle him pink.”

“ But how ? ”

“ I’ll tell you how. I was reading a magazine
the other day, and there was an advertisement
in it of a Correspondence School which teaches
practically everything. You put a cross against
the course you want to take and clip out the
coupon and bung it in, and they do the rest. I
suppose they send you pamphlets and things.
So the moment you get back to London, look
up this advertisement — ^it was in the Piccadilly
Magazine — write to these people and tell
them to ahoot the works.”

Sacheverell pondered this advice during the

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST 155

railway journey, and the more he pondered it
the more clearly did he see how excellent it was.
It offered the solution to all his troubles. There
was no doubt whatever that the bad impression
he had made on Colonel Branksome was due
chiefly to his ignorance of the latter’s pet
subjects. If he were in a position to throw off a
good thing from time to time on Guano or the
Influence of Dip on the Younger Leicestershire
Sheep, Muriel’s father would unquestionably
view him with a far kindlier eye.

He lost no time in clipping out the coupon and
forwarding it with a covering cheque to the
address given in the advertisement. And two
days later a bulky package arrived, and he
settled down to an intensive course of study.

By the time Sacheverell had mastered the first
six lessons, a feeling of perplexity had begun to
steal over him. He knew nothing, of course,
of the methods of Correspondence Schools and
was prepared to put his trust blindly in his
unseen tutor ; but it did strike him as odd that
a course on Scientific Agriculture should have
absolutely no mention of Scientific Agriculture
in it. Though admittedly a child in these
matters, he had supposed that that was one of
the first topics on which the thing would have
touched.

MULLINER NIGHTS

154

But such was not the case. The lessons con-
tained a great deal of advice about deep breathing
and regular exercise and cold baths and Yogis
and the training of the mind, but on the subject
of Scientific Agriculture they were vague and
elusive. They simply would not come to the
point. They said nothing about sheep, nothing
about manure, and from the way they avoided
mangold-wurzels you might have thought they
considered these wholesome vegetables almost
improper.

At first, Sacheverell accepted this meekly, as he
accepted everything in life. But gradually, as
his reading progressed, a strange sensation of
annoyance began to grip him. He found himself
chafing a good deal, particularly in the mornings.
And when the seventh lesson arrived and still
there was this absurd coyness on the part of his
instructors to come to grips with Scientific
Agriculture, he decided to put up with it no
longer. He was enraged. These people, he
considered, were deliberately hornswoggling him.
He resolved to go round and see them and put it
to them straight that he was not the sort of man
to be trifled with in this fashion.

The headquarters of the Leave-It-To-Us Cor-
respondence School were in a large building off
Kingsway. Sacheverell, passing through the

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST I55

front door like an east wind, found himself
confronted by a small boy with a cold and super-
cilious eye.

“ Yes ? ” said the boy, with deep suspicion.
He seemed to be a lad who distrusted his fellow-
men and attributed the worst motives to their
actions.

Sacheverell pointed curtly to a door on which
was the legend “ Jno. B. Philbrick, Mgr.”

“ I wish to see Jno. B. Philbrick, Mgr,” he said.

The boy’s lip curled contemptuously. He
appeared to be on the point of treating the
application with silent disdain. Then he vouch-
safed a single, scornful word.

“ Can’tseeMr.Philbrickwithoutan appoint-
ment,” he said.

A few weeks before, a rebuff like this would
have sent Sacheverell stumbling blushfully out of
the place, tripping over his feet. But now he
merely brushed the child aside like a feather, and
strode to the inner office.

A bald-headed man with a walrus moustache
was seated at the desk.

“ Jno. Philbrick ? ” said Sacheverell brusquely.

“ That is my name.”

“ Then listen to me, Philbrick,” said Sachev-
erell. “ I paid fifteen guineas in advance for a
course on Scientific Agriculture. I have here
the seven lessons which you have sent me to date,

MULLINER NIGHTS

156

and if you can find a single word in them that
has anything even remotely to do with Scientific
Agriculture, I will eat my hat — and yours, too,
Philbrick.”

The manager had produced a pair of spectacles
and through them was gazing at the mass of
literature which Sacheverell had hurled before him.
He raised his eyebrows and clicked his tongue.

“ Stop clicking ! ” said Sacheverell. “ I came
here to be explained to, not clicked at.”

“ Dear me ! ” said the manager. “ How very
curious.”

Sacheverell banged the desk forcefully.

“ Philbrick,” he shouted, “ do not evade the
issue. It is not curious. It is scandalous, mon-
strous, disgraceful, and I intend to take very
strong steps. I shall give this outrage the widest
and most pitiless publicity, and spare no effort
to make a complete exposi”

The manager held up a deprecating hand.

“ Please ! ” he begged. “ I appreciate your
indignation, Mr. . . . Mulliner ? Thank you . . .
I appreciate your indignation, Mr. Mulliner. I
sympathize with your concern. But I can assure
you that there has been no desire to deceive.
Merely an unfortunate blunder on the part of
our clerical staff, who shall be severely repri-
manded. What has happened is that the wrong
course has been sent to you.”

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST I57

Sacheverell’s righteous wrath cooled a little.

“ Oh ? ” he said, somewhat mollified. “ I see.
The wrong course, eh ? ”

“ The wrong course,” said Mr. Philbrick.
“ And,” he went on, with a sly glance at his
visitor, “ I think you will agree with me that
such immediate results are a striking testimony to
the efficacy of our system.”

Sachevcrell was puzzled.

“ Results ? ” he said. “ How do you mean,
results ? ”

The manager smiled genially.

“ What you have been studying for the past
few weeks, Mr. Mulliner,” he said, “ is our course
on How To Acquire Complete Self-Confidence
and an Iron Will.”

A strange elation filled Sacheverell Mulliner’s
bosom as he left the offices of the Correspondence
School. It is always a relief to have a mystery
solved which has been vexing one for any
considerable time : and what Jno. Philbrick had
told him made several puzzling things clear.
For quite a little while he had been aware that a
change had taken place in his relationship to the
world about him. He recalled taxi-cabmen
whom he had looked in the eye and made to
wilt ; intrusive pedestrians to whom he had
refused to yield an inch of the pavement, where

MULLINER NIGHTS

158

formerly he would have stepped meekly aside.
These episodes had perplexed him at the time,
but now everything was explained. .

But what principally pleased him was the
thought that he was now relieved of the tedious
necessity of making a study of Scientific Agri-
culture, a subject from which his artist soul had
always revolted. Obviously, a man with a will
as iron as his would be merely wasting time
boning up a lot of dull facts simply with the view
of pleasing Sir Redvers Branksome. Sir Redvers
Branksome, felt Sacheverell, would jolly well
take him as he was, and like it.

He anticipated no trouble from that quarter.
In his mind’s eye he could see himself lolling at
the dinner- table at the Towers and informing the
Colonel oyer a glass of port that he proposed, at
an early date, to marry his daughter. Possibly,
purely out of courtesy, he would make the grace-
ful gesture of affecting to seek the old buster’s
approval of the match : but at the slightest sign
of obduracy he would know what to do about it.

Well pleased, Sacheverell was walking to the
Carlton Hotel, where he intended to lunch, when,
just as he entered the Haymarket, he stopped
abruptly, and a dark frown came into his
resolute face.

A cab had passed him, and in that cab was
sitting his fiancee, Muriel Branksome. And

THE VOICE PROM THE PAST I59

beside her, with a grin on his beastly face, was a
young man in a Brigade of Guards tie. They
,had the air of a couple on their way to enjoy a
spot of limch somewhere.

That Sacheverell should have deduced immedi-
ately that •he young man was Muriel’s cousin,
Bernard, was due to the fact that, like all the
Mullincrs, he was keenly intuitive. That he
should have stood, fists clenched and eyes
blazing, staring after the cab, we may set down
to the circumstance that the spectacle of these
two, sfiuashed together in carefree proximity on
the seat of a taxi, had occasioned in him the
utmost rancour and jealousy.

Muriel, as she had told him, had once been
engaged to xier cousin, and the thought that they
were still on terms of such sickening intimacy
acted like acid on Sacheverell’s soul.

Hobnobbing in cabs, by Jove ! Revelling
tete-cL-tete at luncheon-tables, forsooth ! Just the
sort of goings-on that got the Cities of the Plain
so disliked. He saw clearly that Muriel was a
girl who would have to be handled firmly.
There was nothing of the possessive Victorian
male about him — he flattered himself that he was
essentially modern and broadminded in his out-
look — but if Muriel supposed that he was going
to stand by like a clam while she went on Baby-
lonian orgies all over the place with pop-eyed,

MULLINER NIGHTS

i6o

smirking, toothbrush-moustached Guardees, she
was due for a rude awakening.

And Sacheverell Mulliner did not mean maybe.

For an instant, he toyed with the idea of hailing
another cab and following them. Then he
thought better of it. He was enraged, but still
master of himself. When he ticked Muriel off,
as he intended to do, he wished to tick her off
alone. If she was in London, she was, no doubt,
staying with her aunt in Ennismore Gardens. He
would get a bit of food and go on there at his
leisure.

The butler at Ennismore Gardens informed
Sacheverell, when he arrived, that Muriel was,
as he supposed, visiting the house, though for the
moment out to lunch. Sacheverell waited, and
presently tlie door of the drawing-room opened
and the girl came in.

She seemed delighted to see him.

“ Hullo, old streptococcus,” she said. “ Here
you are, eh ? I rang you up this morning to ask
you to give me a bite of lunch, but you were out,
so I roped in Bernard instead and we buzzed off
to the Savoy in a taximeter.”

“ I saw you,” said Sacheverell cold.y.

“ Did you ? You poor chump, why didn’t you
yell ? ”

“ I had no desire to meet your Cousin Bernard,”

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST l6l

said Sacheverell, still speaking in the same frigid
voice. “ And, while we are on this distasteful
subject, I must request you not to see him again.”

The girl stared.

“ You must do how much f ”

“ I must request you not to see him again,”
repeated Sacheverell. “ I do not wish you to
continue your Cousin Bernard’s acquaintance.
1 do not like his looks, nor do I approve of my
fiancee lunching alone with young men.”

Muriel seemed bewildered.

“ You want me to tie a can to poor old
Bernard ? ” she gasped.

“ I insist upon it.”

“ But, you poor goop, we were children
together.”

Sacheverell shrugged his shoulders.

“ If,” he said, “ you survived knowing Bernard
as a child, why not be thankful and let it go at
that ? Why deliberately come up for more
punishment by seeking him out now ? Well,
there' it is,” said Sacheverell crisply. “ I have
told you my wishes, and you will respect them.”

Muriel appeared to be experiencing a difficulty
in finding words. She was bubbling like a
saucepan on the point of coming to the boil.
Nor could any unprejudiced critic have blamed
her for her emotion. The last time she had seen
Sacheverell, it must be remembered, he had been

MULLINER NIGHTS

162

the sort of man who made a shrinking violet look
like a Chicago gangster. And here he was now,
staring her in the eye and shooting pflf his head
for all the world as if he were Mussolini informing
the Italian Civil Service of a twelve per cent cut
in their weekly salary. j

“ And now,” said Sacheverell, “ there i^
another matter of which I wish to speak. I am
anxious to see your father as soon as possible, in
order to announce our engagement to him. , It is
quite time that he learned what my plans are. I
shall be glad, therefore, if you will make arrange-
ments to put me up at the Towers this coming
week-end. Well,” concluded Sacheverell, glanc-
ing at his watch, “ I must be going. I have
several matters to attend to, and your luncheon
with your cousin was so prolonged that the hour
is already late. Good-bye. We shall meet on
Saturday.”

Sacheverell was feeling at the top of his form
when he set out for Branksome Towers on the
following Saturday. The eighth lesson of his
course on how to develop an iron will had reached
him by the morning post, and he studied it on the
train. It was a pippin. It showed you exactly
how Napoleon had got that way, and there was
some technical stuff about narrowing the eyes and
fixing them keenly on people which alone was

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST 165

worth the money. He alighted at Market
Branksome Station in a glow of self-confidence.
The only thing that troubled him was a fear lest
Sir Redvers might madly attempt anything in the
nature of opposition to his plans. He did not
wish to be compelled to scorch the poor old man
to a crisp at his own dinner-table.

He was meditating on this and resolving to
remember to do his best to let the Colonel down
as lightly as possible, when a voice spoke his
name.

“ Mr. Mulliner ? ”

He turned. He supposed he was obliged to
believe his eyes. And, if he did believe his eyes,
the man standing beside him was none other
than Muriel’s cousin Bernard.

“ They sent me down to meet you,” continued
Bernard. “ I’m the old boy’s nephew. Shall
we totter to the car ? ”

Sacheverell was beyond speech. The thought
that, after what he had said, Muriel should have
invited her cousin to the Towers had robbed him
of utterance. He followed the other to the car in
silence.

In the drawing-room of the Towers they found
Muriel, already dressed for dinner, brightly
shaking up cocktails.

“ So you got here ? ” said Muriel.

At another time her manner might have

164 MULLINER NIGHTS

Struck Sacheverell as odd. There was an un-
wonted hardness in it. Her eye, though he was
too preoccupied to notice it, had a 'dangerous
gleam.

“ Yes,” he replied shortly. “ I got here.”

“ The Bish. arrived yet ? ” asked Bernard.

“ Not yet. Father had a telegram from him.
He won’t be along till late-ish. The Bishop of
Bognor is coming to confirm a bevy of the local
yokels,” said Muriel, turning to Sacheverell.

“ Oh ? ” said Sacheverell. He was not inter-
ested in Bishops. They left him cold. He was
interested in nothing but her explanation of how
her repellent cousin came to be here to-night in
defiance of his own expressed wishes.

“ Well,” said Bernard, “ I suppose I’d better
be going Up and disguising myself as a waiter.”

“ I, too,” said Sacheverell. He turned to
Muriel. “ I take it I am iij the Blue Suite, as
before ? ”

“ No,” said Muriel. “ You’re in the Garden
Room. You see ”

“ I see perfectly,” said Sacheverell curtly.

He turned on his heel and stalked to the door.

The indignation which Sacheverell had felt on
seeing Bernard at the station was as nothing
compared with that which seethed within him as
he dressed for dinner. That Bernard should be

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST 165

at the Towers at all was monstrous. That he
should have been given the star bedroom in
preference to himself, Sacheverell Mulliner, was
one of those things before which the brain reels.

As you are doubtless aware, the distribution of
bedrooms in country houses is as much a matter
of rigid precedence as the distribution of dressing-
rooms at a theatre. The nibs get the best ones,
the small fry squash in where they can. If
Sacheverell had been a prima donna told off to
dress with the second character-woman, he could
not have been more mortified.

It was not simply that the Blue Suite was the
only one in the house with a bathroom of its own :
it was the principle of the thing. The fact that
he was pigging it in the Garden Room, while
Bernard wallowed in luxury in the Blue Suite
was tantamount to a declaration on Muriel’s
part that she intended to get back at him for the
attitude which he had taken over her luncheon-
party. It was a slight, a deliberate snub, and
Sacheverell came down to dinner coldly resolved
to nip all this nonsense in the bud without delay.

Wrapped in his thoughts, he paid no attention
to the conversation during the early part of
dinner. He sipped a moody spoonful or two of
soup and toyed with a morsel of salmon, but
spiritually he was apart. It was only when the

MULLINER NIGHTS

x66

saddle of lamb had been distributed and the
servitors had begun to come round with the
vegetables that he was roused from his reverie by
a sharp, barking noise from the head of the table,
not unlike the note of a man-eating tiger catching
sight of a Hindu peasant ; and, glancing up, he
perceived that it proceeded from Sir Redvers
Branksome. His host was staring in an unpleas-
ant manner at a dish which had just been placed
under his nose by the butler.

It was in itself a commonplace enough occur-
rence — merely the old, old story of the head of
the family kicking at the spinach ; but for some
reason it annoyed Sacheverell intensely. His
strained nerves were jangled by the animal cries
which had begun to fill the air, and he told
himself that Sir Redvers, if he did not switch it
oflf pretty quick, was going to be put through it
in no uncertain fashion.

Sir Redvers, meanwhile, unconscious of im-
pending doom, was glaring at the dish.

“ What,” he enquired in a hoarse, rasping
voice, “ is this dashed, sloppy, disgusting, slithery,
gangrened mess ? ”

The butler did not reply. He had been
through all this before. He merely increased in
volume the detached expression which good
butlers wear on these occasions. He looked like
a prominent banker refusing to speak without

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST 167

advice of counsel. It was Muriel who supplied
the necessary information.

“ It’s spinach, father.”

“ Then take it away and give it to the cat.
You know I hate spinach.”

“ But it’s so good for you.”

“ Who says it’s good for me ? ”

“ All the doctors. It bucks you up if you
haven’t enough haemoglobins.”

“ I have plenty of haemoglobins,” said the
Colonel testily. “ More than I know what to do
with.”

“ It’s full of iron.”

“ Iron ! ” The Colonel’s eyebrows had drawn
themselves together into a single, formidable
zareba of hair. He snorted fiercely. “ Iron !
Do you take me for a sword-swallower ? Are
you under the impression that I am an ostrich,
that I should browse on iron ? Perhaps you
would like me to tuck away a few door-knobs and
a couple of pairs of roller-skates ? Or a small
portion of tin-tacks ? Iron, forsooth ! ”

Just, in short, the ordinary, conventional
spinach-row of the better-class English home ; but
Sacheverell was in no mood for it. This bickering
and wrangling irritated him, and he decided that
it must stop. He half rose from his chair.

“ Branksome,” he said in a quiet, level voice,
“ you will eat your spinach.”

l68 MULLINER KIGHTS

"Eh? What? What’s that?”

“ You will eat your nice spinach immediately,
Branksome,” said Sacheverell. Andrat the same
time he narrowed his eyes and fixed them keenly
on his host.

And suddenly the rich purple colour began to
die out of the old man’s cheeks. Gradually his
eyebrows crept back into their normal position.
For a brief while he met Sacheverell’s eye ; then
he dropped his own and a weak smile came into
his face.

" Well, well,” he said, with a pathetic attempt
at bluffness, as he reached over and grabbed the
spoon. " What have we here ? Spinach, eh ?
Capital, capital ! Full of iron, I believe, and
highly recommended by the medical profession.”

And he dug in and scooped up a liberal
portion.

A short silence followed, broken only by the
sloshing sound of the Colonel eating spinach.
Then Sacheverell spoke.

“ I wish to see you in your study immediately
after dinner, Branksome,” he said curtly.

Muriel was playing the piano when Sacheverell
came into the drawing-room some forty minutes
after the conclusion of dinner. She was inter-
preting a work by one of those Russian composers
who seem to have been provided by Nature

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST 169

especially with a view to soothing the nervous
systems of young girls who are not feeling quite
themselves. It was a piece from which the best
results are obtained by hauling off and delivering
a series of overhand swings which make the
instrument wobble like the engine-room of a
liner ; and Muriel, who was a fine, sturdy girl,
was putting a lot of beef into it.

The change in Sacheverell had distressed
Muriel Branksome beyond measure. Contem-
plating him, she felt as she had sometimes felt at a
dance when she had told her partner to bring
her ice-cream and he had come frisking up with
a bowl of mock-turtle soup. Cheated — that is
what she felt she had been. She had given her
heart to a mild, sweet-natured, lovable lamb ;
and the moment she had done so he had suddenly
flung off his sheep’s clothing and said : “ April
fool ! I’m a wolf ! ”

Haughty by nature, Muriel Branksome was
incapable of bearing anything in the shape of
bossiness from the male. Her proud spirit
revolted at it. And bossiness had become
Sacheverell Mulliner’s middle name.

The result was that, when Sacheverell entered
the drawing-room, he found his loved one all set
for the big explosion.

He suspected nothing. He was pleased with
himself, and looked it.

MULLINER NIGHTS

170

“ I put your father in his place all right at
dinner, what ? ” said Sacheverell, buoyantly.
“ Put him right where he belonged,'! think.”

Muriel gnashed her teeth in a quiet undertone.

“ He isn’t so hot,” said Sacheverell. “ The
way you used to talk about him, one would have
thought he was the real ginger. Quite the
reverse I found him. As nice a soft-spoken old
bird as one could wish to meet. When I told
him about our engagement, he just came and
rubbed his head against my leg and rolled over
with his paws in the air.”

Muriel swallowed softly.

“ Our what ? ” she said.

“ Our engagement.”

“ Oh ? ” said Muriel. “ You told him we were
engaged,. did you ? ”

“ I certainly did.”

“Then you can jolly well go back,” said
Muriel, blazing into sudden fury, “ and tell him
you were talking through your hat.”

Sacheverell stared.

“ That last remark once again, if you don’t
mind.”

“ A hundred times, if you wish it,” said Muriel.
“ Get this well into your fat head. Memorize it
carefully. If necessary, write it on your cuff. I
am not going to marry you. I wouldn’t marry
you to win a substantial bet or to please an old

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST IJl

school-friend. I wouldn’t many you if you
offered me all the money in the world. So
there ! ”

Sacheverell blinked. He was taken aback,

“ This sounds like the bird,” he said.

“ It is the bird.”

“You are really giving me the old raspberry ? ”
1 am.

“ Don’t you love your little Sacheverell ? ”

“ No, I don’t. I think my little Sacheverell is a
mess.”

There was a silence. Sacheverell regarded her
with lowered brows. Then he uttered a short,
bitter laugh.

“ Oh, very well,” he said.

Sacheverell Mulliner boiled with jealous rage.
Of course, he saw what had happened. The girl
had fallen once more under the glamorous spell
of her cousin Bernard, and proposed to throw a
Mulliner’s heart aside like a soiled glove. But if
she thought he was going to accept the situation
meekly and say no more about it, she would soon
discover her error.

Sacheverell loved this girl — not with the tepid
preference which passes for love in these degen-
erate days, but with all the medieval fervour of
a rich and passionate soul. And he intended to
marry her. Yes, if the whole Brigade of Guards

MULLINER NIGHTS

172

Stood between, he was resolved to walk up the
aisle with her arm in his and help her cut the
cake at the subsequent breakfast.

Bernard. . . ! He would soon settle Bernard.

For all his inner ferment, Sacheverell retained
undiminished the clearness of mind which
characterizes Mulliners in times of crisis. An
hour’s walk up and down the terrace had shown
him what he must do. There was nothing to be
gained by acting hastily. He must confront
Bernard alone in the silent night, when they
would be free from danger of interruption and
he could set the full force of his iron personality
playing over the fellow like a hose.

And so it came about that the hour of eleven,
striking from the clock above the stables, found
Sacheverell Mulliner sitting grimly in the Blue
Suite, waiting for his victim to arrive.

His brain was like ice. He had matured his
plan of campaign. He did not intend to hurt
the man — merely to order him to leave the
house instantly and never venture to see or speak
to Muriel again.

So mused Sacheverell Mulliner, unaware that
no Cousin Bernard would come within ten yards
of the Blue Suite that night. Bernard had
already retired to rest in the Pink Room on the
third floor, which had been his roosting-place
from the beginning of his visit. The Blue Suite,

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST I75

being the abode of the most honoured guest, had,
of course, been earmarked from the start for the
Bishop of Bognor.

Carburettor trouble and a series of detours
had delayed the Bishop in his journey to Brank-
some Towers. At first, he had hoped to make it
in time for dinner. Then he had anticipated an
arrival at about nine-thirty. Finally, he was
exceedingly relieved to reach his destination
shortly after eleven.

A quick sandwich and a small limejuice and
soda were all that the prelate asked of his host
at that advanced hour. These consumed, he
announced himself ready for bed, and Colonel
Branksome conducted him to the door of the
Blue Suite.

“ I hope you will find everything comfortable,
my dear Bishop,” he said.

“ I am convinced of it, my dear Branksome,”
said the Bishop. “ And to-morrow I trust I shall
feel less fatigued and in a position to meet the
rest of your guests.”

“ There is only one beside my nephew Bernard.
A young fellow named Mulliner.”

“ Mulligan ? ”

“ Mulliner.”

“ Ah, yes,” said the Bishop. “ Mulliner.”

And simultaneously, inside the room, my

MULLINER NIGHTS

174

nephew Sacheverell sprang from his chair, and
stood frozen, like a statue.

In narrating this story, I have touched lightly
upon Sacheverell’s career at Harborough College.
I shall not be digressing now if I relate briefly
what had always been to him the high spot in it.

One sunny summer day, when a lad of fourteen
and a half, my nephew had sought to relieve the
tedium of school routine by taking a golf-ball
and flinging it against the side of the building,
his intention being to catch it as it rebounded.
Unfortunately, when it came to the acid test,
the ball did not rebound. Instead of going due
north, it went nor’-nor’-east, with the result
that it passed through the window of the head-
master’s library at the precise moment when that
high official was about to lean out for a breath
of air. And the next moment, a voice, proceeding
apparently from heaven, had spoken one word.
The voice was like the deeper notes of a great
organ, and the word was the single word :

“ MULLINER ! ! ! ”

And, just as the word Sacheverell now heard
was the same word, so was the voice the same
voice.

To appreciate my nephew’s concern, you must
understand that the episode which I have just
related had remained green in his memory right
through the years. His pet nightmare, and the

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST I75

one which had had so depressing an effect on his
morale, had always been the one where he found
himself standing, quivering and helpless, while a
voice uttered the single word “ Mulliner ! ”

Little wonder, then, that he now remained for
an instant paralysed. His only coherent thought
was a bitter reflection that somebody might have
had the sense to tell him that the Bishop of
Bognor was his old headmaster, the Rev. J. G-
Smethurst. Naturally, in that case, he would
have been out of the place in two strides. But
they had simply said the Bishop of Bognor, and
it had meant nothing to him.

Now that it was too late, he seemed to recall
having heard somebody somewhere say some-
thing about the Rev. J. G. Smethurst becoming a
bishop ; and even in this moment of collapse he
was able to feel a thrill of justifiable indignation
at the shabbiness of the act. It wasn’t fair for
headmasters to change their names like this and
take people unawares. The Rev. J. G. Smethurst
might argue as much as he liked, but he couldn’t
get away from the fact that he had played a
shady trick on the community. The man was
practically going about under an alias.

But this was no time for abstract meditations
on the question of right and wrong. He must
hide . . . hide.

Yet why, you arc asking, should my nephew

MULLINER NIGHTS

ij6

Sachevercll wish to hide ? Had he not in eight
easy lessons from the Leave-It-To-Us School of
Correspondence acquired complete self-confi-
dence and an iron will ? He had, but in this
awful moment all that he had learned had passed
from him like a dream. The years had rolled
back, and he was a fifteen-year-old jelly again, in
the full grip of his Headmaster Phobia.

To dive under the bed was with Sachevercll
Mulliner the work of a moment. And there,
as the door opened, he lay, holding his breath and
trying to keep his ears from rustling in the draught.

Smethurst {alias Bognor) was a leisurely
undresser. He doffed his gaiters, and then for
some little time stood, apparently in a reverie,
humming one of the song-hits from the psalms.
Eventually, he resumed his disrobing, but even
then the ordeal was not over. As far as
Sacheverell could see, in the constrained position
in which he was lying, the Bishop was doing a
few setting-up exercises. Then he went into the
bathroom and cleaned his teeth. It was only
at the end of half an hour that he finally climbed
between the sheets and switched off the light.

For a long while after he had done so,
Sacheverell remained where he was, motionless.
But presently a faint, rhythmical sound from the
neighbourhood of the pillows assured him that

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST I77

the Other was asleep, and he crawled cautiously
from his lair. Then, stepping with infinite
caution, he moved to the door, opened it, and
passed through.

The relief which Sacheverell felt as he closed
the door behind him would have been less intense,
had he realized that through a slight mistake in
his bearings he had not, as he supposed, reached
the haven of the passage outside but had merely
entered the bathroom. This fact was not brought
home to him until he had collided with an
unexpected chair, upset it, tripped over a bath-
mat, clutched for support into the darkness and
brushed from off the glass shelf above the basin
a series of bottles, containing — in the order given
■ — Scalpo (“ It Fertilizes The Follicles ”),
Soothine — for applying to the face after shaving,
and Doctor Wilberforce’s Golden Gargle in the
large or seven-and-sixpenny size. These, crash-
ing to the floor, would have revealed the truth
to a far duller man than Sacheverell Mulliner.

He- acted swiftly. From the room beyond,
there had come to his ears the unmistakable
sound of a Bishop sitting up in bed, and he did
not delay. Hastily groping for the switch, he
turned on the light. He found the bolt and
shot it. Only then did he sit down on the edge
of the bath and attempt to pass the situation
under careful review.

MULLINER NIGHTS

178

He was not allowed long for quiet thinking.
Through the door came the sound of deep
breathing. Then a voice spoke. '

“ Who is they-ah ? ”

As always in the dear old days of school, it
caused Sacheverell to leap six inches. He had
just descended again, when another voice spoke
in the bedroom. It was that of Colonel Sir
Redvers Branksome, who had heard the crashing
of glass and had come, in the kindly spirit of a
good host, to make enquiries.

“ What is the matter, my dear Bishop ? ” he
asked.

“ It is a burglar, my dear Colonel,” said the
Bishop.

“ A burglar ? ”

“ A burglar. He has locked himself in the
bathroom.”

“ Then how extremely fortunate,” said the
Colonel heartily, “ that I should have brought
along this battle-axe and shot-gun on the chance.”

Sacheverell felt that it was time to join in the
conversation. He went to the door and put his
lips against the keyhole.

“ It’s all right,” he said, quaveringly.

The Colonel uttered a surprised exclamation.

“ He says it’s all right,” he reported.

“ Why does he say it is all right ? ” asked the
Bishop.

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST I79

“ I didn’t ask him,” replied the Colonel. “ He
just said it was all right.”

The Bishop sniffed peevishly.

“ It is not all right,” he said, with a certain
heat. “ And I am at a loss to understand why
the man should affect to assume that it is. I
suggest, my dear Colonel, that our best method
of procedure is as follows, you take the shot-
gun and stand in readiness, and I will hew down
the door with this admirable battle-axe.”

And it was at this undeniably critical point in
the proceedings that something soft and clinging
brushed against Sacheverell’s right ear, causing
him to leap again — this time a matter of eight
inches and a quarter. And, spinning round, he
discovered that what had touched his ear was
the curtain of the bathroom window.

There now came a splintering crash, and the
door shook on its hinges. The Bishop, with all
the blood of a hundred Militant Churchmen
ancestors afire within him, had started operations
with the axe.

But Sacheverell scarcely heard the noise. The
sight of the open window had claimed his entire
attention. And now, moving nimbly, he clam-
bered through it, alighting on what seemed to be
leads.

For an instant he gazed wildly about him;
then, animated, perhaps, by some subconscious

MULLINER NIGHTS

i8o

memory of the boy who bore ’mid snow and ice
the banner with the strange device “ Excelsior ! ”
he leaped quickly upwards and started to climb
the roof.

Muriel Branksome, on retiring to her room on
the floor above the Blue Suite, had not gone to
bed. She was sitting at her open window,
thinking, thinking.

Her thoughts were bitter ones. It was not that
she felt remorseful. In giving Sacheverell the air
at their recent interview, her conscience told her
that she had acted rightly. He had behaved like
a domineering sheik of the desert : and a dislike
for domineering sheiks of the desert had always
been an integral part of her spiritual make-up.

But the consciousness of having justice on her
side is not always enough to sustain a girl at such
a time: and an aching pain gripped Muriel as
she thought of the Sacheverell she had loved —
the old, mild, sweet-natured Sacheverell who had
asked nothing better than to gaze at her with
adoring eyes, removing them only when he
found it necessary to give his attention to the bit
of string with which he was doing tricks. She
mourned for this vanished Sacheverell.

Obviously, after what had happened, he would
leave the house early in the morning — probably
long before she came down, for she was a late

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST l8l

riser. She wondered if she would ever see him
again.

At this moment, she did. He was climbing up
the slope of the roof towards her on his hands and
knees — and, for one who was not a cat, doing it
extremely well. She had hardly risen to her feet
before he was standing at the window, clutching
the sill.

Muriel choked. She stared at him with wide,
tragic eyes.

“ What do you want ? ” she asked harshly.

“ Well, as a matter of fact,” said Sacheverell,
“ I was wondering if you would mind if I hid
under your bed for a bit.”

And suddenly, in the dim light, the girl saw
that his face was contorted with a strange terror.
And, at the spectacle, all her animosity seemed to
be swept away as if on a tidal wave, and back
came the old love and esteem, piping hot and as
fresh as ever. An instant before, she had been
wanting to beat him over the head with a brick.
Now, she ached to comfort and protect him.
For here once more was the Sacheverell she had
worshipped — the poor, timid fluttering, helpless
pipsqueak whose hair she had always wanted to
stroke and to whom she had felt a strange,
intermittent urge to offer lumps of sugar.

“ Come right in,” she said.

He threw her a hasty word of thanks and shot

x 82

MULLINER NIGHTS

over the sill. Then abruptly he stiffened, and
the wild, hunted look was in hisij’eyes again.
From somewhere below there had pome the deep
baying of a Bishop on the scent. He clutched at
Muriel, and she held him to her like a mother
soothing a nightmare-ridden child.

“ Listen ! ” he whispered.

“ Who are they ? ” asked Muriel.

“ Headmasters,” panted Sacheverell. “ Droves
of headmasters. And colonels. Coveys of colonels.
With battle-axes and shot-guns. Save me,Muriel ! ”

“ There, there ! ” said Muriel. “ There, there,
there ! ”

She directed him to the bed, and he dis-
appeared beneath it like a diving duck.

“ You will be quite safe there,” said Muriel.
“ And HOW tell me what it is all about.”

Outside, they could hear the noise of the hue-
and-cry. The original strength of the company
appeared to have been augmented by the butler
and a few sporting footmen. Brokenly, Sachev-
erell told her all.

“ But what were you doing in the Blue Suite ? ”
asked the girl, when he had concluded his tale.
“ I don’t understand.”

“ I went to interview your cousin Bernard, to
tell him that he should marry you only over my
dead body.”

“ What an unpleasant idea ! ” said Muriel,

THE VOICE FROM THE PAST 183

shivering a little. “ And I don’t see how it
could have tjeen done, anyway.” She paused a
moment, listening to the uproar. Somewhere
downstairs, footmen seemed to be falling over
one another : and once there came the shrill cry
of a Hunting Bishop stymied by a hat-stand.
“ But what on earth,” she asked, resuming her
remarks, “ made you think that I was going to
marry Bernard ? ”

“ I thought that that was why you gave me the
bird.”

“ Of course it wasn’t. I gave you the bird
because you had suddenly turned into a beastly,
barking, bullying, overbearing blighter.”

There was a pause before Sacheverell spoke.

“ Had I ? ” he said at length. “ Yes, I sup-
pose I had. Tell me,” he continued, “ is there a
good milk- train in the morning ? ”

“ At three-forty, I believe.”

“ I’ll catch it.”

“ Must you really go ? ”

“ I must, indeed.”

“ Oh, well,” said Muriel. “ It won’t be long
before we meet again. I’ll run up to London
one of these days, and we’ll have a bit of lunch
together and get married and ...”

A gasp came from beneath the bed.

“ Married ! Do you really mean that you
will marry me, Muriel ? ”

184 MULLINER NIGHTS

“ Of course I wUl. The past is dead. You
are my own precious angel pet again, and I love
you madly, passionately. What’s been the
matter with you these last few weeks I can’t
imagine, but I can see it’s all over now, so don’t
let’s talk any more about it. Hark ! ” she said,
holding up a finger as a sonorous booming noise
filled the night, accompanied by a flood of rich
oaths in what appeared to be some foreign
language, possibly Hindustani. “ I think father
has tripped over the dinner-gong.”

Sacheverell did not answer. His heart was too
full for words. He was thinking how deeply he
loved this girl and how happy those few remarks
of hers had made him.

And yet, mingled with his joy, there was some-
thing of sorrow. As the old Roman poet has it,
surgit amari aliquid. He had just remembered
that he had paid the Leave-It-To-Us Correspon-
dence School fifteen guineas in advance for a
course of twenty lessons. He was abandoning
the course after taking eight. And the thought
that stabbed him like a knife was that he no
longer had enough self-confidence and iron will
left to enable him to go to Jno. B. Philbrick,
Mgr., and demand a refund.

VI

OPEN HOUSE

M r. MULLINER put away the letter he
had been reading, and beamed con-
tentedly on the little group in the bar-
parlour of the Anglers’ Rest.

“ Most gratifying,” he murmured.

“ Good news ? ” we asked.

“ Excellent,” said Mr. Mulliner. “ The letter
was from my nephew Eustace, who is attached
to our Embassy in Switzerland. He has fully
justified the family’s hopes.”

“ Doing well, is he ? ”

“ Capitally,” said Mr. Mulliner.

He chuckled reflectively.

“ Odd,” he said, “ now that the young fellow
has made so signal a success, to think what a
business we had getting him to undertake the
job. At one time it seemed as if it would be
hopeless to try to persuade him. Indeed, if
Fate had not taken a hand . . .”

“ Didn’t he want to become attached to the
Embassy ? ”

MULLINER NIGHTS

1 86

The idea revolted him. Here was this splen-
did opening, dangled before his eyes through the
influence of his godfather, Lord , Knubble of
Knopp, and he stoutly refused to avail himself of
it. He wanted to stay in London, he said. He
liked London, he insisted, and he jolly well
wasn’t going to stir from the good old place.

To the rest of his relations this obduracy
seemed mere capriciousness. But I, possessing
the young fellow’s confidence, knew that there
were solid reasons behind his decision. In the
first place, he knew himself to be the favourite
nephew of his Aunt Georgiana, relict of the late
Sir Cuthbert Beazley-Beazley, Bart., a woman of
advanced years and more than ample means.
And, secondly, he had recently fallen in love with
a girl of the name of Marcella Tyrrwhitt.

“ A nice sort of chump I should be, buzzing
off to Switzerland,” he said to me one day when
I had been endeavouring to break down his
resistance. “ I’ve got to stay on the spot, haven’t
I, to give Aunt Georgiana the old oil from time to
time ? And if you suppose a fellow can woo a
girl like Marcella Tyrrwhitt through the medium
of the post, you are vastly mistaken. Something
occurred this morning which makes me think
she’s weakening, and that’s just the moment
when the personal touch is so essential. Come
one, come all, this rock shall fly from its firm base

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187

as soon as I,” said Eustace, who, like so many of
the Mulliners, had a strong vein of the poetic in
him.

What had occurred that morning, I learned
later, was that Marcella Tyrrwhitt had rung my
nephew up on the telephone.

“ Hullo ! ” she said. “ Is that Eustace ? ”

“ Yes,” said Eustace, for it was.

“ I say, Eustace,” proceeded the girl, “ I’m
leaving for Paris to-morrow.”

“ You aren’t ! ” said Eustace.

“ Yes, I am, you silly ass,” said the girl, “ and
I’ve got the tickets to prove it. Listen, Eustace.
There’s something I want you to do for me. You
know my canary ? ”

“ William ? ”

“ William is right. And you know my Peke ? ”

“ Reginald ? ”

“ Reginald is correct. Well, I can’t take them
with me, because William hates travelling and
Reginald would have to go into quarantine for
six months when I got back, which would make
him froth with fury. So will you give them a
couple of beds at your flat while I’m away ? ”

“ Absolutely,” said Eustace. “ We keep open
house, we Mulliners.”

“ You won’t find them any trouble. There’s
nothing of the athlete about Reginald. A brisk
walk of twenty minutes in the park sets him up

i88

MULLINER NIGHTS

for the day, as regards exercise. And, as for
food, give him whatever you’re having yourself
— raw meat, puppy biscuits and so on. Don’t let
him have cocktails. They unsettle him.”

“ Right-ho,” said Eustace. “ The scenario
seems pretty smooth so far. How about Wil-
liam ? ”

“ In re William, he’s a bit of an eccentric in the
food line. Heaven knows why, but he likes
bird-seed and groundsel. Couldn’t touch the
stuff myself. You get bird-seed at a bird-seed
shop.”

“ And groundsel, no doubt, at the groundscl-
ler’s ? ”

“ Exactly. And you have to let William out
of his cage once or twice a day, so that he can
keep his waist-line down by fluttering about the
room. He comes back all right as soon as he’s
had his bath. Do you follow all that ? ”

“ Like a leopard,” said Eustace.

“ I bet you don’t.”

“ Yes, I do. Brisk walk Reginald. Brisk
flutter William.”

“ You’ve got it. All right, then. And re-
member that I set a high value on those two, so
guard them with your very life.”

“ Absolutely,” said Eustace. “ Rather ! You
bet. I should say so. Positively.”

Ironical, of course, it seems now, in the light of

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189

what occurred subsequently, but my nephew
told me that that was the happiest moment of his
life.

He loved this girl with every fibre of his being,
and it seemed to him that, if she selected him
out of all her circle for this intensely important
trust, it must mean that she regarded him as a
man of solid worth and one she could lean on.

“ These others,” she must have said to herself,
running over the roster of her friends. “ What
are they, after all ? Mere butterflies. But Eus-
tace Mulliner — ah, that’s different. Good stuff
there. A young fellow of character.”

He was delighted, also, for another reason.
Much as he would miss Marcella Tyrrwhitt, he
was glad that she was leaving London for a while,
because his love-life at the moment had got into
something of a tangle, and her absence would
just give him nice time to do a little adjusting and
unscrambling.

Until a week or so before he had been deeply
in love with another girl — a certain Beatrice
Watterson. And then, one night at a studio-
party, he had met Marcella and had instantly
discerned in her an infinitely superior object for
his passion.

It is this sort of thing that so complicates life
for the young man about town. He is too apt
to make his choice before walking the whole

MULLINER NIGHTS

190

length of the counter. He bestows a strong man’s
love on Girl A. and is just congratulating himself
when along comes Girl B. whose very existence
he had not suspected, and he finds that he has
picked the wrong one and has to work like a
beaver to make the switch.

What Eustace wanted to do at this point was
to taper off with Beatrice, thus clearing the stage
and leaving himself free to concentrate his whole
soul on Marcella. And Marcella’s departure
from London would afford him the necessary
leisure for the process.

So, by the way of tapering off with Beatrice,
he took her to tea the day Marcella left, and at
tea Beatrice happened to mention, as girls will,
that it would be her birthday next Sunday, and
Eustace. said “Oh, I say, really? Come and
have a bite of lunch at my flat,” and Beatrice
said that she would love it, and Eustace said that
he must give her something tophole as a present,
and Beatrice said “ Oh, no, really, you mustn’t,”
and Eustace said Yes, dash it, he was resolved.
Which started the tapering process nicely, for
Eustace knew that on the Sunday he was due
down at his Aunt Georgiana’s at Wittleford-cum-
Bagsley-on-Sea for the week-end, so that when
the girl arrived all eager for lunch and found not
only that her host was not there but that there
was not a birthday present in sight of any

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.

191

description, she would be deeply offended and
would become cold and distant and aloof.

Tact, my nephew tells me, is what you need
on these occasions. You want to gain the desired
end without hurting anybody’s feelings. And,
no doubt, he is right.

After tea he came back to his flat and took
Reginald for a brisk walk and gave William a
flutter, and went to bed that night, feeling that
God was in His heaven and all right with the
world.

The next day was warm and sunny, and it
struck Eustace that William would appreciate it
if he put his cage out on the window-sill, so that
he could get the actinic rays into his system. He
did this, accordingly, and, having taken Reginald
for his saunter, returned to the flat, feeling that
he had earned the morning bracer. He in-
structed Blenkinsop, his man, to bring the
materials, and soon peace was reigning in the
home to a noticeable extent. William was
trilling lustily on th<; window-sill, Reginald was
resting from his ex -rtions under the sofa, and
Eustace had begur. to sip his whisky-and-soda
without a care in the world, when the door
opened and Blenkinsop announced a visitor.

“ Mr. Orlando Wotherspoon,” said Blenkin-
sop, and withdrew, to go on with the motion-

MULLINER NIGHTS

192

picture magazine which he had been reading in
the pantry.

Eustace placed his glass on the fable and rose
to extend the courtesies in a somewhat puzzled,
not to say befogged, state of mind. The name
Wotherspoon had struck no chord, and he could
not recollect ever having seen the man before in
his life.

And Orlando Wotherspoon was not the sort
of person who, once seen, is easily forgotten. He
was built on large lines, and seemed to fill the
room to overflowing. In physique, indeed, he
was not unlike what Primo Camera would have
been, if Camera had not stunted his growth by
smoking cigarettes when a boy. He was pre-
ceded by a flowing moustache of the outsize
soup-strainer kind, and his eyes were of the
piercing type which one associates with owls,
sergeant-majors, and Scotland Yard inspectors.

Eustace found himself not a little perturbed.

“ Oh, hullo ! ” he said.

Orlando Wotherspoon scrutinized him keenly
and, it appeared to Eustace, with hostility. If
Eustace had been a rather more than ordinarily
unpleasant black-beetle this man would have
looked at him in much the same fashion. The
expression in his eyes was that which comes into
the eyes of suburban householders when they
survey slugs among their lettuces.

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m

“ Mr. Mulliner ? ” he said,

“ I shouldn’t wonder,” said Eustace, feeling
that this might well be so.

“ My name is Wotherspoon.”

“ Yes,” said Eustace. “ So Blenkinsop was
saying, and he’s a fellow I’ve found I can usually
rely on.”

“ I live in the block of flats across the gardens.”

“ Yes ? ” said Eustace, still at a loss. “ Have
a pretty good time ? ”

“ In answer to your question, my life is
uniformly tranquil. This morning, however, I
saw a sight which shattered my peace of mind
and sent the blood racing hotly through my
veins.”

“ Too bad when it’s like that,” said Eustace,
“ What made your blood carry on in the manner
described ? ”

“ I will tell you, Mr. Mulliner. I was seated
in my window a few minutes ago, drafting out
some notes for my forthcoming speech at the
annual dinner of Our Dumb Chums’ League, of
which I am perpetual vice-president, when, to
my horror, I observed a fiend torturing a helpless
bird. For a while I gazed in appalled stupe-
faction, while my blood ran cold.”

“ Hot, you said.”

“ First hot, then cold. I seethed with indig-
nation at this fiend.”

MULLINER NIGHTS

194

“ I don’t blame you,” said Eustace. “ If
there’s one type of chap I bar, it’s a fiend. Who
was the fellow ? ”

“ Mulliner,” said Orlando Wotherspoon,
pointing a finger that looked like a plantain or
some unusually enlarged banana, “ thou art the
man ! ”

“ What ! ”

“Yes,” repeated the other, “ you ! Mulliner,
the Bird-Bullier ! Mulliner, the Scourge of Our
Feathered Friends ! What do you mean, you
Torquemada, by placing that canary on the
window-sill in the full force of the burning sun ?
How would you feel if some pop-eyed assassin
left out in the sun without a hat, to fry where
you stood ? ” He went to the window and
hauled the cage in. “ It is men like you,
Mulliner, who block the wheels of the world’s
progress and render societies like Our Dumb
Chums’ League necessary.”

“ I thought the bally bird enjoyed it,” said
Eustace feebly.

“ Mulliner, you lie ! ” said Orlando Wother-
spoon.

And he looked at Eustace in a way that con-
vinced the latter, who had suspected it from the
first, that he had not made a new friend.

“ By the way,” he said, hoping to ease the
strain, “ have a spot ? ”

OPEN HOUSE

195

“ I will not have a spot ! ”

“ Right-ho,” said Eustace. “ No spot. But,
coming back to the agenda, you wrong me,
Wotherspoon. Foolish, mistaken, I may have
been, but, as God is my witness, I meant well.
Honestly, I thought William would be tickled
pink if I put his cage out in the sun.”

“ Tchah ! ” said Orlando Wotherspoon.

And, as he spoke, the dog Reginald, hearing
voices, crawled out from under the sofa in the
hope that something was going on which might
possibly culminate in coffee-sugar.

At the sight of Reginald’s honest face, Eustace
brightened. A cordial friendship had sprung
up between these two based on mutual respect.
He extended a hand and chirruped.

Unfortunately, Reginald, suddenly getting a
close-up of that moustache and being convinced
by the sight of it that plots against his person
were toward, uttered a piercing scream and dived
back under the sofa, where he remained, calling
urgently for assistance.

Orlando Wotherspoon put the worst construc-
tion on the incident.

“ Ha, Mulliner ! ” he said. “ This is vastly
well ! Not content with inflicting fiendish
torments on canaries, it would seem that you also
slake your inhuman fury on this innocent dog, so
that he runs, howling, at the mere sight of you.”

MULLINER NIGHTS

196

Eustace tried to put the thing right.

“ I don’t think it’s the mere sight of me he
objects to,” he said. “ In fact, d’ye frequently
seen him take quite a long, steady look at me
without wincing.”

“ Then to what, pray, do you attribute the
animal’s visible emotion ? ”

“ Well, the fact is,” said Eustace, “ I fancy the
root of the trouble is that he doesn’t much care
for that moustaehe of yours.”

His visitor began to roll up his left coat-sleeve
in a meditative way.

** Are you venturing, Mulliner, to criticize
my moustache ? ”

“ No, no,” said Eustace. “ I admire it.”

“ I would be sorry,” said Orlando Wother-
spoon, •“ to think that you were aspersing my
moustache, Mulliner. My grandmother has often
described it as the handsomest in the West End
of London. ‘ Leonine ’ is the adjective she
applies to it. But perhaps you regard my grand-
mother as prejudiced ? Possibly you consider her
a foolish old woman whose judgments may be
lightly set aside ? ”

“ Absolutely not,” said Eustace.

“ I am glad,” said Wotherspoon. “ You
would have been the third man I have thrashed
within an inch of his life for insulting my
grandmother. Or is it,” he mused, “ the

OPEN HOUSE 197

fourth ? 1 could consult my books and let you
know.”

“ Don’t bother,” said Eustace.

There was a lull in the conversation.

“ Well, Mulliner,” said Orlando Wothersp)oon
at length, “ I will leave you. But let me tell you
this. You have not heard the last of me. You
see this ? ” He produced a note-book. “ I keep
here a black list of fiends who must be closely
watched. Your Christian name, if you please ? ”

“ Eustace.”

“ Age ? ”

“ Twenty-four.”

“ Height ? ”

“ Five foot ten,”

“ Weight ? ”

“ Well,” said Eustace, “ I was around ten
stone eleven when you came in. I think I’m a
bit lighter now.”

“ Let us say ten stone seven. Thank you, Mr.
Mulliner. Everything is now in order. You
have been entered on the list of suspects on whom
I make a practice of paying surprise visits.
From now on, you will never know when I may
or may not knock upon your door.”

“ Any time you’re passing,” said Eustace.

“ Our Dumb Chums’ League,” said Orlando
Wotherspoon, putting away his note-book, “ is
not unreasonable in these matters. We of the

MULUNER NIGHTS

198

organization have instructions to proceed in the
matter of fiends with restraint and deliberation.
For the first offence, we are coritent to warn.
After that. ... I must remember, when I return
home, to post you a copy of our latest booklet. It
sets forth in detail what happened to J. B. Stokes,
of 9 Manglesbury Mansions, West Kensington, on
his ignoring our warning to him to refrain from
throwing vegetables at his cat. Good morning,
Mr. Mulliner. Do not trouble to see me to the
door.”

Young men of my nephew Eustace’s type are
essentially resilient. This interview had taken
place on the Thursday. By Friday, at about one
o’clock, he had practically forgotten the entire
episode. And by noon on Saturday he was his
own merry self once more.

It was on this Saturday, as you may remember,
that Eustace was to go down to Wittleford-cum-
Bagsley-on-Sea to spend the week-end with his
aunt Georgiana.

Wittleford-cum-Bagsley-on-Sea, so I am
informed by those who have visited it, is not a
Paris or a pre-War Vienna. In fact, once the
visitor has strolled along the pier and put pennies
in the slot machines, he has shot his bolt as far
as the hectic whirl of pleasure, for which the
younger generation is so avid, is concerned.

Nevertheless, Eustace found himself quite

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199

looking forward to the trip. Apart from the fact
that he would be getting himself in solid with a
woman who combined the possession of a
hundred thousand pounds in Home Rails with a
hereditary tendency to rheumatic trouble of the
heart, it was pleasant to reflect that in about
twenty-four hours from the time he started the
girl Beatrice would have called at the empty
flat and gone away in a piqued and raised-eye-
brow condition, leaving him free to express his
individuality in the matter of the girl Marcella.

He whistled gaily as he watched Blenkinsop
pack.

“You have thoroughly grasped the programme
outlined for the period of my absence, Blenkin-
sop ? ” he said.

“ Yes, sir.”

“ Take Master Reginald for the daily stroll.”

“ Yes, sir.”

“ See that Master William does his fluttering.”

“ Yes, sir.”

“ And don’t get them mixed. I mean, don’t
let Reginald flutter and take William for a walk.”

“ No, sir.”

“ Right ! ” said Eustace. " And on Sunday,
Blenkinsop — to-morrow, that is to say — a young
lady will be turning up for lunch. Explain to
her that I’m not here, and give her anything she
wants.”

200 MULLINER NIGHTS

“ Very good, sir.”

Eustace set out upon his journey with a light
heart. Arrived at Wittlefbrd-cum-Bagsley-on-
Sea, he passed a restful week-end playing double
patience with his aunt, tickling her cat under the
left ear from time to time, and walking along
the esplanade. On the Monday he caught the
one-forty train back to London, his aunt cordial
to the last.

“ I shall be passing through London on my
way to Harrogate next Friday,” she said, as he
was leaving. “ Perhaps you will give me tea ? ”

“ I shall be more than delighted, Aunt
Georgiana,” said Eustace. “ It has often been
a great grief to me that you allow me so few
opportunities of entertaining you in my little
home. At four- thirty next Friday. Right ! ”

Everything seemed to him to be shaping so
satisfactorily that his spirits were at their highest.
He sang in the train to quite a considerable
extent.

“ What ho, Blenkinsop ! ” he said, entering
the flat in a very nearly rollicking manner.

Everything all right ? ”

“ Yes, sir,” said Blenkinsop. “ I trust that you
have enjoyed an agreeable week-end, sir ? ”

“ Topping,” said Eustace. “ How are the
dumb chums ? ”

“ Master William is in robust health, sir.”

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201

” Splendid ! And Reginald ? ”

“ Of Master Reginald I cannot speak with the
authority of first-hand knowledge, sir, as the
young lady removed him yesterday.”

Eustace clutched at a chair.

“ Removed him ? ”

“ Yes, sir. Took him away. If you recall
your parting instructions, sir, you enjoined upon
me that I should give the young lady anything
she wanted. She selected Master Reginald.
She desired me to inform you that she was sorry
to have missed you but quite understood that
you could not disappoint your aunt, and that, as
you insisted on giving her a birthday present, she
had taken Master Reginald.”

Eustace pulled himself together with a strong
effort. He saw that nothing was to be gained
by upbraiding the man. Blenkinsop, he realized,
had acted according to his lights. He told him-
self that he should have remembered that his
valet was of a literal turn of mind, who always
carried out instructions to the letter.

“ Get her on the ’phone, quick,” he said.

“ Impossible, I fear, sir. The young lady
informed me that she was leaving for Paris by
the two o’clock train this afternoon.”

“ Then, Blenkinsop,” said Eustace, “ give me
a quick one.”

“ Very good, sir.”

202 MULLINER NIGHtS

The restorative seemed to clear the young
man’s head.

f

“ Blenkinsop,” he said, “ give me your atten-
tion. Don’t let your mind wander. We’ve got
to do some close thinking — some very close
thinking.”

“ Yes, sir.”

In simple words Eustace explained the position
of affairs. Blenkinsop clicked his tongue.
Eustace held up a restraining hand.

“ Don’t do that, Blenkinsop.”

“ No, sir.”

“ At any other moment I should be delighted
to listen to you giving your imitation of a man
drawing corks out of champagne bottles. But not
now. Reserve it for the next party you attend.”

“ Very good, sir.”

Eustace returned to the matter in hand.

“ You see the position I am in ? We must
put our heads together, Blenkinsop. How can
I account satisfactorily to Miss Tyrrwhitt for
the loss of her dog ? ”

“ Would it not be feasible to inform the young
lady that you took the animal for a walk in the
park and that it slipped its collar and ran away ? ”

“ Very nearly right, Blenkinsop,” said Eustace.
“ but not quite. What actually happened was
that you took it for a walk and, like a perfect
chump, went and lost it.”

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203

“ Well, really, sir-

" Blenkinsop,” said Eustace, “ if there is one
drop of the old feudal spirit in your system, now
is the time to show it. Stand by me in this
crisis, and you will not be the loser.”

“ Very good, sir.”

“You realize, of course, that when Miss
Tyrrwhitt returns it will be necessary for me to
curse you pretty freely in her presence, but you
must read between the lines and take it all in a
spirit of pure badinage.”

“ Very good, sir.”

“ Right-ho, then, Blenkinsop. Oh, by the
way, my aunt will be coming to tea on Friday.”

“ Very good, sir.”

These preliminaries settled, Eustace proceeded
to pave the way. He wrote a long and well-
phrased letter to Marcella, telling her that, as he
was unfortunately confined to the house with one
of his bronchial colds, he had been compelled
to depute the walk-in-the-park- taking of Reginald
to his man Blenkinsop, in whom he had every
confidence. He went on to say that Reginald,
thanks to his assiduous love and care, was in the
enjoyment of excellent health and that he would
always look back with wistful pleasure to the
memory of their long, cosy evenings together.
He drew a picture of Reginald and himself
sitting side by side in silent communion — he

204 MULLINER NIGHTS

deep in some good book, Reginald meditating
on this and that — which almost brought the tears
to his eyes.

Nevertheless, he was far from feeling easy in
his mind. Women, he knew, in moments of
mental stress, are always apt to spray the blame
a good deal. And, while Blenkinsop would
presumably get the main stream, there might well
be a few drops left over which would come in his
direction.

For, if this girl Marcella Tyrrwhitt had a
defect, it was that the generous warmth of her
womanly nature led her now and then to go off
the deep end somewhat heartily. She was one
of those tall, dark girls with flashing eyes who
tend to a certain extent, in times of stress, to draw
themselves to their full height and let their male
vis-d-vis have it squarely in the neck. Time had
done much to heal the wound, but he could still
recall some of the things she had said to him the
night when they had arrived late at the theatre,
to discover that he had left the tickets on his
sitting-room mantelpiece. In two minutes any
competent biographer would have been able to
gather material for a complete character-sketch.
He had found out more about himself in that one
brief interview than in all the rest of his life.

Naturally, therefore, he brooded a good deal
during the next few days. His friends were

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20$

annoyed at this period by his absent-mindedness.
He developed a habit of saying “ What ? ” with
a glazed look in his eyes and then sinking back
and draining his glass, all of which made him
something of a dead weight in generzJ conver-
sation.

You would see him sitting hunched up in a
corner with his jaw drooping, and a very
unpleasant spectacle it was. His fellow members
began to complain about it. They said the
taxidermist had no right to leave him lying about
the club after removing his insides, but ought to
buckle to and finish stuffing him and make a job
of it.

He was sitting like this one afternoon, when
suddenly, as he raised his eyes to see if there
was a waiter handy, he caught sight of the card
on the wall which bore upon it the date and the
day of the week. And the next moment a couple
of fellow-members who had thought he was dead
and were just going to ring to have him swept
away were stunned to observe him leap to his
feet and run swifdy from the room.

He had just discovered that it was Friday, the
day his Aunt Georgiana was coming to tea at
his flat. And he only had about tluree and a
half minutes before the kick-off.

A speedy cab took him quickly home, and he
was relieved, on entering the flat, to find that

MULLINER NIGHTS

206

his aunt was not there. The tea-table had been
set out, but the room was empty except for
William, who was trying over a song' in his cage.
Greatly relieved, Eustace went to the cage and
unhooked the door, and William, after jumping
up and down for a few moments in the eccentric
way canaries do, hopped out and started to
flutter to and fro.

It was at this moment that Blenkinsop came
in with a well-laden plate.

“ Cucumber sandwiches, sir,” said Blenkinsop.

Ladies are usually strongly addicted to them.”

Eustace nodded. The man’s instinct had not
led him astray. His aunt was passionately
addicted to cucumber sandwiches. Many a time
he had seen her fling herself on them like a
starving wolf.

“ Her ladyship not arrived ? ” he said.

“ Yes, sir. She stepped down the street to
dispatch a telegram. Would you desire me to
serve cream, sir, or will the ordinary milk suffice?”

“Cream? Milk?”

“ I have laid out an extra saucer.”

“ Blenkinsop,” said Eustace, passing a rather
feverish hand across his brow, for he had much
to disturb him these days. “You appear to be
talking of something, but it does not penetrate.
What is all this babble of milk and cream ? Why
do you speak in riddles of extra saucers ? ”

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207

“ For the cat, sir.”

“ What cat ? ”

“ Her ladyship was accompanied by her cat,
Francis.”

The strained look passed from Eustace’s face.

“Oh? Her cat?”

“ Yes, sir.”

“ Well, in regard to nourishment, it gets milk
— the same as the rest of us — and likes it. But
serve it in the kitchen, because of the canary.”

“ Master Francis is not in the kitchen, sir.”

“ Well, in the pantry or my bedroom or
wherever he is.”

“ When last I saw Master Francis, sir, he was
enjoying a cooling stroll on the window-sill.”

And at this juncture there silhouetted itself
against the evening sky a lissom form.

“ Here ! Hi ! My gosh ! I say ! Dash it ! ”
exclaimed Eustace, eyeing it with unconcealed
apprehension.

“ Yes, sir,” said Blenkinsop. “ Excuse me, sir.
I fancy I heard the front door bell.”

And he withdrew, leaving Eustace a prey to
the liveliest agitation.

Eustace, you see, was still hoping, in spite of
having been so remiss in the matter of the dog,
to save his stake, if I may use the expression, on
the canary. In other words, when Marcella
Tyrrwhitt returned and began to be incisive on

2o8 mulliner nights

the subject of the vanished RegincJd, he wished
to be in a position to say : “ True ! True ! In
the matter of Reginald, I grant that I have
failed you. But pause before you speak and take
a look at that canary — fit as a fiddle and bursting
with health. And why? Because of my unre-
mitting care.”

A most unpleasant position he would be in if,
in addition to having to admit that he was one
Peke down on the general score, he also had to
reveal that William, his sheet-anchor, was in-
extricably mixed up with the gastric juices of a
cat which the girl did not even know by sight.

And that this tragedy was imminent he was
sickeningly aware from the expression on the
animal’s face. It was a sort of devout, ecstatic
look. He had observed much the same kind of
look on the face of his Aunt Georgiana when about
to sail into the cucumber sandwiches. Francis
was inside the room now, and was gazing up at
the canary with a steady, purposeful eye. His
tail was twitching at the tip.

The next moment, to the accompaniment of a
moan of horror from Eustace, he had launched
himself into the air in the bird’s direction.

Well, William was no fool. Where many a
canary would have blenched, he retained his
sangfroid unimpaired. He moved a little to the
left, causing the cat to miss by a foot. And his

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209

beak, as he did so, was curved in a derisive smile.
In fact, thinking it over later, Eustace realized
that right from the beginning William had the
situation absolutely under control and wanted
nothing but to be left alone to enjoy a good laugh.

At the moment, however, this did not occur to
Eustace. Shaken to the core, he supposed the
bird to be in the gravest peril. He imagined it
to stand in need of all the aid and comfort he
could supply. And, springing quickly to the tea-
table, he rummaged among its contents for some-
thing that would serve him as ammunition in the
fray.

The first thing he put his hand on was the plate
of cucumber sandwiches. These, with all the
rapidity at his command, he discharged, one after
the other. But, though a few found their mark,
there was nothing in the way of substantial
results. The very nature of a cucumber sand-
wich makes it poor throwing. He could have
obtained direct hits on Francis all day without
slowing him up. In fact, the very moment after
the last sandwich had struck him in the ribs, he
was up in the air again, clawing hopefully.

William side-stepped once more, and Francis
returned to earth. And Eustace, emotion ruin-
ing his aim, missed him by inches with a sultana
cake, three muffins, and a lump of sugar.

Then, desperate, he did what he should, of

210 MULLINER NIGHTS

course, have done at the very outset. Grabbing
the table-cloth, he edged round with extraordinary
stealth till he was in the cat’s immediate rear, and
dropped it over him just as he was tensing his
muscles for another leap. Then, flinging him-
self on the mixture of cat and table-cloth, he
wound them up into a single convenient parcel.

Exceedingly pleased with himself Eustace felt
at this point. It seemed to him that he had
shown resource, intelligence, and an agility highly
creditable in one who had not played Rugby
football for years. A good deal of bitter criticism
was filtering through the cloth, but he overlooked
it. Francis, he knew, when he came to think the
thing^ over calmly, would realize that he deserved
all he was getting. He had always found Francis
a fair-minded cat, when the cold sobriety of his
judgment was not warped by the sight of canaries.

He was about to murmur a word or two to this
effect, in the hope of inducing the animal to
behave less like a gyroscope, when, looking round,
he perceived that he was not alone.

Standing grouped about the doorway were his
Aunt Georgiana, the girl, Marcella Tyrrwhitt,
and the well-remembered figure of Orlando
Wotherspoon.

“ Lady Beazley-Beazley, Miss Tyrrwhitt, Mr.
Orlando Wotherspoon,” announced Blenkinsop.

Tea is served, sir.”

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ZIl

A wordless cry broke from Eustace’s lips. The
table-cloth fell from his nerveless fingers. And
the cat, Francis, falling on his head on the carpet,
shot straight up the side of the wall and en-
trenched himself on top of the curtains.

There was a pause. Eustace did not know
quite what to say. He felt embarrassed.

It was Orlando Wotherspoon who broke the
silence.

“ So ! ” said Orlando Wotherspoon. “ At
your old games, Mulliner, I perceive.”

Eustace’s Aunt Georgiana was pointing dra-
matically.

“ He threw cucumber sandwiches at my cat ! ”

“ So I observe,” said Wotherspoon. He spoke
in an unpleasant, quiet voice, and he was looking
not unlike a high priest of one of the rougher
religions who runs his eye over the human
sacrifice preparatory to asking his caddy for the
niblick. “ Also, if I mistake not, sultana cake
and muffins.”

“ Would you require fresh muffins, sir ? ” asked
Blenkinsop.

“ The case, in short, would appear to be on all
fours,” proceeded Wotherspoon, ** with that of
J. B. Stokes, of 9, Manglesbury Mansions, West
Kensington.”

“ Listen ! ” said Eustace, backing towards the
window. “ I can explain everything.”

212

MULLINER NIGHTS

“ There is no need of explanations, Mulliner,”
said Orlando Wotherspoon. He had rolled up
the left sleeve of his coat and was 'beginning to
roll up the right. He twitched his biceps to
limber it up. “ The matter explains itself.”

Eustace’s Aunt Georgiana, who had been
standing under the curtain making chirruping
noises, came back to the group in no agreeable
frame of mind. Overwrought by what had
occurred, Francis had cut her dead, and she was
feeling it a good deal.

“ If I may use your telephone, Eustace,” she
said quietly, “ I would like to ring up my
lawyer and disinherit you. But first,” she
added to Wotherspoon, who was now inhaling
and expelling the breath from his nostrils in
rather a' disturbing manner, “ would you oblige
me by thrashing him within an inch of his
life ? ”

“ I was about to do so, madam,” replied
Wotherspoon courteously. “ If this young lady
will kindly stand a little to one side ”

“ Shall I prepare some more cucumber sand-
wiches, sir ? ” asked Blenkinsop.

“ Wait ! ” cried Marcella Tyrrwhitt, who
hitherto had not spoken.

Orlando Wotherspoon shook his head gently.

“ If, deprecating scenes of violence, it is your
intention. Miss Tyrrwhitt Any relation of

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213

my old friend, Major-General George Tyrrwhitt
of the Buffs, by the way ? ”

“ My uncle,”

“ Well, well ! I was dining with him only
last night.”

“ It’s a small world, after all,” said Lady
Beazley-Beazley.

“ It is, indeed,” said Orlando Wotherspoon.
“ So small that I feel there is scarcely room in it
for both Mulliner the cat-slosher and myself.
I shall, therefore, do my humble best to eliminate
him. And, as I was about to say, if, deprecating
scenes of violence, you were about to plead for the
young man, it will, I fear, be useless. I can
listen to no intercession. The regulations of
Our Dumb Chums’ League are very strict.”

Marcella Tyrrwhitt uttered a hard, rasping
laugh.

“ Intercession ? ” she said. “ What do you
mean — intercession ? I wasn’t going to intercede
for this wambling misfit. I was going to ask if I
could have first whack.”

“ Indeed ? Might I enquire why ? ”

Marcella’s eyes flashed. Eustace became Con-
vinced, he tells me, that she had Spanish blood
in her.

“ Would you desire another sultana cake,
sir ? ” asked Blenkinsop.

“ I’ll tell you why,” cried Marcella. “ Do

MULLINER NIGHTS

214

you know what this man has done ? I left my
dog, Reginald, in his care, and he swore to guard
and cherish him. And what occurred ? My
back was hardly turned when he went and gave
him away as a birthday present to some foul
female of the name of Beatrice Something.”

Eustace uttered a strangled cry.

“ Let me explain ! ”

“ I was in Paris,” proceeded Marcella, “ walk-
ing along the Champs-Elysees, and I saw a girl
coming towards me with a Pcke, and I said to
myself: ‘Hullo, that Peke looks extraordinarily like
my Reginald,’ and then she came up and it was
Reginald, and I said: ‘Here ! Hey ! What are
you doing with my Peke Reginald?’ and this girl
said: ‘What do you mean, your Peke Reginald?
It’s my Peke Percival, and it was given to me as
a birthday present by a friend of mine named
Eustace Midliner.’ And I bounded on to the
next aeroplane and came over here to tear him
into little shreds. And what I say is, it’s a shame
if I’m not to be allowed a go at him after all the
trouble and expense I’ve been put to.”

And, burying her lovely face in her hands, she
broke into uncontrollable sobs.

Orlando Wotherspoon looked at Lady Beazley-
Beazley. Lady Beazley-Beazley looked at Or-
lando Wotherspoon. There was pity in their
eyes.

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215

“ There, there ! ” said Lady Beazley-Beazley.
“ There, there, there, my dear ! ”

“ Believe me. Miss Tyrrwhitt,” said Orlando
Wotherspoon, patting her shoulder paternally,
“ there are few things I would not do for the
niece of my old friend, Major-General George of
the Buffs, but this is an occasion when, much as
it may distress me, I must be firm. I shall have
to make my report at the annual committee-
meeting of Our Dumb Chums’ League, and how
would I look, explaining that I had stepped aside
and allowed a delicately nurtured girl to act for
me in a matter so important as the one now
on the agenda ? Consider, Miss Tyrrwhitt !
Reflect ! ”

“ That’s all very well,” sobbed Marcella, “ but
all the way over, all during those long, weary
hours in the aeroplane, I was buoying myself up
with the thought of what I was going to do to
Eustace Mulliner when we met. See ! I picked
out my heaviest parasol.”

Orlando Wotherspoon eyed the dainty weapon
with an indulgent smile.

“ I fear that would hardly meet such a case as
this,” he said. “ You had far better leave the
conduct of this affair to me.”

“ Did you say more muffins, sir ? ” asked
Blenkinsop.

“ I do not wish to boast,” said Wotherspoon,

MULLIHER NIGHTS

216

“ but I have had considerable experience. I
have been formally thanked by my committee
on several occasions.” '

“ So you see, dear,” said Lady Beazley-
Beazley soothingly, “ it will be ever so much
better to ”

“ Any buttered toast, fancy cakes, or maca-
roons ? ” asked Blenkinsop.

“ — leave the matter entirely in Mr. Wother-
spoon’s hands. I know just how you feel. I am
feeling the same myself. But even in these
modem days, my dear, it is the woman’s part to

efface herself and ”

“ Oh, well ! ” said Marcella moodily.

Lady Beazley-Beazley folded her in her arms
and over her shoulder nodded brightly at
Orlando Wotherspoon.

“ Please go on, Mr. Wotherspoon,” she said.
Wotherspoon bowed, with a formal word of
thanks. And, turning, was just in time to see
Eustace disappearing through the window.

The fact is, as this dialogue progressed,
Eustace had found himself more and more
attracted by that open window. It had seemed
to beckon to him. And at this juncture, dodging
lightly round Blenkinsop, who had now lost his
grip entirely and was suggesting things like
watercress and fruit-salad, he precipitated him-
self into the depths and, making a good landing.

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217

raced for the open spaces at an excellent rate of
speed.

That night, heavily cloaked and disguised in a
false moustache, he called at my address,
clamouring for tickets to Switzerland. He ar-
rived there some few days later, and ever since
has stuck to his duties with unremitting energy.

So much so that, in that letter which you saw
me reading, he informs me that he has just been
awarded the Order of the Crimson Edelweiss,
Third Class, with crossed cuckoo-clocks, carrying
with it the right to yodel in the presence of the
Vice-President. A great honour for so young a
man.

VII

BEST SELLER

A SHARP snort, plainly emanating from a
soul in anguish, broke the serene silence
that brooded over the bar-parlour of the
Anglers’ Rest. And, looking up, we perceived
Miss Postlethwaite, our sensitive barmaid, dab-
bing at her eyes with a dishcloth.

“ Sorry you were troubled,” said Miss Postle-
thwaite, in answer to our concerned gaze, “ but
he’s just gone off to India, leaving her standing
tight-lipped and dry-eyed in the moonlight out-
side the old Manor. And her little dog has
crawled up and licked her hand, as if he under-
stood and sympathized.”

We stared at one another blankly. It was Mr.
Mulliner who, with his usual clear insight,
penetrated to the heart of the mystery.

“ Ah,” said Mr. Mulliner, “ you have been
reading ‘ Rue for Remembrance,’ I see. How
did you like it ? ”

“ ’Slovely,” said Miss Postlethwaite. “ It lays
the soul of Woman bare as with a scalpel.”

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219

“ You do not consider that there is any falling
off from the standard of its predecessors ? You
find it as good as * Parted Ways ’ ? ”

“ Better.”

“ Oh ! ” said a Stout and Bitter, enlightened.
“ You’re reading a novel ? ”

“ The latest work,” said Mr. Mulliner, “ from
the pen of the authoress of ‘ Parted Ways,’ which,
as no doubt you remember, made so profound a
sensation some years ago. I have a particular
interest in this writer’s work, as she is my niece.”

“ Your niece ? ”

“ By marriage. In private life she is Mrs.
Egbert Mulliner.” He sipped his hot Scotch and
lemon, and mused a while.

“ I wonder,” he said, “ if you would care to
hear the story of my nephew Egbert and his
bride ? It is a simple little story, just one of those
poignant dramas of human interest which are
going on in our midst every day. If Miss
Postlethwaite is not too racked by emotion to
replenish my glass, I shall be delighted to tell it
to you.”

I will ask you (said Mr. Mulliner) to picture
my nephew Egbert standing at the end of the
pier at the picturesque little resort of Burwash
Bay one night in June, trying to nerve himself to
ask Evangeline Pembury the question that was

2ZO MULLINER NIGHTS

SO near his heart. A hundred times he had tried
to ask it, and a hundred times he had lacked the
courage. But to-night he was feeling in par-
ticularly good form, and he cleared his throat
and spoke.

“ There is something,” he said in a low, husky
voice, “ that I want to ask you.”

He paused. He felt strangely breathless. The
girl was looking out across the moonlit water.
The night was very still. From far away in the
distance came the faint strains of the town band,
as it picked its way through the Star of Eve
song from Tannhauser — ^somewhat impeded by
the second trombone, who had got his music-
sheets mixed and was playing “ The Wedding of
the Painted Doll.”

“ Something,” said Egbert, “ that I want to
ask you.”

“ Go on,” she whispered.

Again he paused. He was afraid. Her answer
meant so much to him.

Egbert Mulliner had come to this quiet seaside
village for a rest cure. By profession he was an
assistant editor, attached to the staff of The Weekly
Booklover ; and, as every statistician knows,
assistant editors of literary weeklies are ranked
high up among the Dangerous Trades. The
strain of interviewing female novelists takes toll
of the physique of all but the very hardiest.

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221

For six months, week in and week out, Egbert
Mulliner had been listening to female novelists
talking about Art and their Ideals. He had seen
them in cosy corners in their boudoirs, had
watched them being kind to dogs and happiest
when among their flowers. And one morning
the proprietor of The Booklover, finding the young
man sitting at his desk with little flecks of foam
about his mouth and muttering over and over
again in a dull, toneless voice the words, “ Aurelia
McGoggin, she draws her inspiration from the
scent of white lilies ! ” had taken him straight off
to a specialist.

“ Yes,” the specialist had said, after listening
at Egbert’s chest for a while through a sort of
telephone, “ we are a little run down, are we
not ? We see floating spots, do we not, and are
inclined occasionally to bark like a seal from pure
depression of spirit ? Precisely. What we need
is to augment the red corpuscles in our blood-
stream.”

And this augmentation of red corpuscles had
been effected by his first sight of Evangeline
Pembury. They had met at a picnic. As
Egbert rested for a moment from the task of
trying to dredge the sand from a plateful of
chicken salad, his eyes had fallen on a divine girl
squashing a wasp with a teaspoon. And for the
first time since he had tottered out of the offices of

222

MULLINER NIGHTS

The Weekly Booklover he had ceased to feel like
something which a cat, having dragged from an
ash-can, has inspected and rejected with a shake
of the head as unfit for feline consumption. In
an instant his interior had become a sort of
Jamboree of red corpuscles. Millions of them
were splashing about and calling gaily to other
millions, still hesitating on the bank : “ Come on
in! The blood’s fine ! ”

Ten minutes later he had reached the con-
clusion that life without Evangeline Pembury
would be a blank.

And yet he had hesitated before laying his
heart at her feet. She looked all right. She
seemed all right. Quite possibly she was all
right. But before proposing he had to be sure.
He had to make certain that there was no danger
of her suddenly producing a manuscript fastened
in the top left corner with pink silk and asking
his candid opinion of it. Everyone has his pet
aversion. Some dislike slugs, others cockroaches.
Egbert Mulliner disliked female novelists.

And so now, as they stood together in the
moonlight, he said :

“ Tell me, have you ever written a novel ? ”
She seemed surprised.

“A novel? No.”

“ Short stories, perhaps ? ”

“ No.”

BEST SELLER

Egbert lowered his voice.

“ Poems ? ” he whispered, hoarsely.

“ No.”

Egbert hesitated no longer. He produced his
soul like a conjurer extracting a rabbit from a hat
and slapped it down before her. He told her of
his love, stressing its depth, purity, and lasting
qualities. He begged, pleaded, rolled his eyes,
and clasped her little hand in his. And when,
pausing for a reply, he found that she had been
doing a lot of thinking along the same lines and
felt much about the same about him as he did
about her, he nearly fell over backwards. It
seemed to him that his cup of joy was full.

It is odd how love will affect different people.
It caused Egbert next morning to go out on the
links and do the first nine in one over bogey.
Whereas Evangeline, finding herself filled with a
strange ferment which demanded immediate out-
let, sat down at a little near-Chippendale table, ate
five marshmallows, and began to write a novel.

Three weeks of the sunshine and ozone of
Burwash Bay had toned up Egbert’s system to
the point where his medical adviser felt that it
would be safe for him to go back to London and
resume his fearful trade. Evangeline followed
him a month later. She arrived home at four-
fifteen on a sunny afternoon, and at four-sixteen-

MULLINER NIGHTS

224

and-a-half Egbert shot through the door with the
love-light in his eyes.

“ Evangeline ! ”

“ Egbert ! ”

But we will not dwell on the ecstasies of the
reunited lovers. We will proceed to the point
where Evangeline raised her head from Egbert’s
shoulder and uttered a little giggle. One would
prefer to say that she gave a light laugh. But it
was not a light laugh. It was a giggle — a furtive,
sinister, shamefaced giggle, which froze Egbert’s
blood with a nameless fear. He stared at her,
and she giggled again.

“ Egbert,” she said, “ I want to tell you
something.”

“ Yes ? ” said Egbert.

Evangeline giggled once more.

“ I know it sounds too silly for words,” she
said, “‘but ”

“Yes? Yes?”

“ I’ve written a novel, Egbert.”

In the old Greek tragedies it was a recognized
rule that any episode likely to excite the pity and
terror of the audience to too great an extent must
be enacted behind the scenes. Strictly speaking,
therefore, this scene should be omitted. But the
modern public can stand more than the ancient
Greeks, so it had better remain on the records.

The room stopped swimming before Egbert

BEST SELLER

2ZJ

Mulliner’s tortured eyes. Gradually the piano,
the chairs, the pictures, and the case of stuffed
birds on the mantelpiece resumed their normal
positions. He found speech.

“ You’ve written a novel ? ” he said, dully.

“ Well, I’ve got to chapter twenty-four.”

“ You’ve got to chapter twenty-four ? ”

“ And the rest will be easy.”

“ The rest will be easy ? ”

Silence fell for a space — a silence broken only
by Egbert’s laboured breathing. Then Evan-
geline spoke impulsively.

“ Oh, Egbert ! ” she cried. “ I really do think
some of it is rather good. I’ll read it to you now.”

How strange it is, when some great tragedy
has come upon us, to look back at the com-
paratively mild beginnings of our misfortunes and
remember how we thought then that Fate had
done its worst. Egbert, that afternoon, fancied
that he had plumbed the lowest depths of misery
and anguish. Evangeline, he told himself, had
fallen from the pedestal on which he had set her.
She had revealed herself as a secret novel-writer.
It was the limit, he felt, the extreme edge. It
put the tin hat on things.

It was, alas ! nothing of the kind. It bore the
same resemblance to the limit that the first drop
of rain bears to the thunderstorm.

The mistake was a pardonable one. The

MULLINER NIGHTS

226

acute agony which he suflfered that afternoon
was more than sufficient excuse for Egbert
Mulliner’s blunder in supposing that he had
drained the bitter cup to the dregs He writhed,
as he listened to this thing which she had entitled
“ Parted Ways,” unceasingly. It tied his very
soul in knots.

Evangeline’s novel was a horrible, an indecent
production. Not in the sense that it would be
likely to bring a blush to any cheek but his, but
because she had put on paper in bald words every
detail of the only romance that had ever come
under her notice — her own. There it was, his
entire courtship, including the first holy kiss and
not omitting the quarrel which they had had
within two days of the engagement. In the
novel she had elaborated this quarrel, which in
fact had lasted twenty-three minutes, into a ten
years’ estrangement — thus justifying the title and
preventing the story finishing in the first five
thousand words. As for his proposal, that was
inserted verbatim ; and, as he listened, Egbert
shuddered to think that he could have polluted
the air with such frightful horse-radish.

He marvelled, as many a man has done before
and will again, how women can do these things.
Listening to “ Parted Ways ” made him, person-
ally, feel as if he had suddenly lost his trousers
while strolling along Piccadilly.

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111

Something of these feelings he would have liked
to put into words, but the Mulliners arc famous
for their chivalry. He would, he imagined, feel
a certain shame if he ever hit Evangeline or
walked on her face in thick shoes ; but that shame
would be as nothing to the shame he would feel
if he spoke one millimetre of what he thought
about “ Parted Ways.’*

“ Great ! ” he croaked.

Her eyes were shining.

“ Do you really think so ? ”

" Fine ! ”

He found it easier to talk in monosyllables.

“ I don’t suppose any publisher would buy it,”
said Evangeline.

Egbert began to feel a little better. Nothing,
of course, could alter the fact that she had wntten
a novel ; but it might be possible to hush it up.

“ So what I am going to do is to pay the
expenses of publication.”

Egbert did not reply. He was staring into the
middle distance and trying to light a fountain-
pen with an unlighted match.

And Fate chuckled grimly, knowing that it had
only just begun having fun with Egbert.

Once in every few publishing seasons there b
an Event. For no apparent reason, the great
heart of the Public gives a startled jump, and the

228 MULLINER NIGHTS

public’s great purse is emptied to secure copies of
some novel which has stolen into the world
without advance advertising and whose only
claim to recognition is that The Licensed Victuallers'
Gazette has stated in a two-line review that it is
“ readable.”

The rising firm of Mainprice and Peabody
published a first edition of three hundred copies
of “ Parted Ways.” And when they found, to
their chagrin, that Evangeline was only going to
buy twenty of these — somehow Mainprice, who
was an optimist, had got the idea that she was
good for a hundred (“ You can sell them to your
friends ”) their only interest in the matter was to
keep an eye on the current quotations for waste
paper. The book they were going to make their
money .on was Stultitia Bodwin’s “ Offal,” in
connection with which they had arranged in
advance for a newspaper discussion on “ The
Growing Menace of the Sex Motive in Fiction :
Is there to be no Limit ? ”

Within a month “ Offal ” was oft the map.
The newspaper discussion raged before an utterly
indifferent public, which had made one of its
quick changes and discovered that it had had
enough of sex, and that what it wanted now was
good, sweet, wholesome, tender tales of the pure
love of a man for a maid, which you could leave
lying about and didn’t have to shove under the

BEST SELLER

229

cushions of the chesterfield every time you heard
your growing boys coming along. And the
particular tale which it selected for its favour was
Evangeline’s “ Parted Ways.”

It is these swift, unheralded changes of the
public mind which make publishers stick straws
in their hair and powerful young novelists rush
round to the wholesale grocery firms to ask if the
berth of junior clerk is still open. Up to the very
moment of the Great Switch, sex had been the
one safe card. Publishers’ lists were congested
with scarlet tales of Men Who Did and Women
Who Shouldn’t Have Done But Who Took a
Pop At It. And now the bottom had dropped
out of the market without a word of warning, and
practically the only way in which readers could
gratify their new-born taste for the pure and simple
was by fighting for copies of “ Parted Ways.”

They fought like tigers. The offices of Main-
price and Peabody hummed like a hive. Printing
macliines worked day and night. From the
Butes of Kyle to the rock-bound coasts of Corn-
wall, a great cry went up for “ Parted Ways.”
In every home in Ealing West “ Parted Ways ”
was found on the whatnot, next to the aspidistra
and the family album. Clergymen preached
about it, parodists parodied it, stockbrokers
stayed away from Cochran’s Revue to sit at home
and cry over it.

MULLINER NIGHTS

Numerous paragraphs appeared in the Press
concerning its probable adaptation into a play,
a musical comedy, and a talking p^ture. Nigel
Playfair was stated to have bought it for Sybil
Thorndike, Sir Alfred Butt for Nellie Wallace.
Laddie Cliff was reported to be planning a
musical play based on it, starring Stanley
Lupino and Leslie Henson. It was rumoured
that Camera was considering the part of “ Percy,”
the hero.

And on the crest of this wave, breathless but
happy, rode Evangeline.

And Egbert? Oh, that’s Egbert, spluttering
down in the trough there. We ean’t be bothered
about Egbert now.

Egbert, however, found ample time to be
bothered about himself. He passed the days in
a frame of mind which it would be ridiculous to
call bewilderment. He was stunned, over-
whelmed, sandbagged. Dimly he realized that
considerably more than a hundred thousand
perfect strangers were gloating over the most
sacred secrecies of his private life, and that the
exact words of his proposal of marriage were
engraven on considerably over a hundred thou-
sand minds. But, except that it made him feel as
if he were being tarred and feathered in front of
a large and interested audience, he did not mind

BEST SELLER

231

that so much. What really troubled him was
the alteration in Evangeline.

The human mind adjusts itself readily to
prosperity. Evangeline’s first phase, when celeb-
rity was new and bewildering, soon passed. The
stammering reception of the first reporter became
a memory. At the end of two weeks she was
talking to the Press with the easy nonchalance of
a prominent politician, and coming back at
note-book-bearing young men with words which
they had to look up in the office Webster. Her
art, she told them, was rhythmical rather than
architectural, and she inclined, if anything, to the
school of the sur-realists.

She had soared above Egbert’s low-browed
enthusiasms. When he suggested motoring out
to Addington and putting in a few holes of golf,
she excused herself. She had letters to answer.
People would keep writing to her, saying how
much “ Parted Ways ” had helped them, and
one had to be civil to one’s public. Autographs,
too. She really could not spare a moment.

He asked her to come with him to the Amateur
Championship. She shook her head. The date,
she said, clashed with her lecture to the East
Dulwich Daughters of Minerva Literary and
Progress Club on “ Some Tendencies of Modem
Fiction.”

All these things Egbert might have endured,

MULLINER NIGHTS

232

for, despite the fact that she could speak so
lightly of the Amateur Championship, he still
loved her dearly. But at this point there sud-
denly floated into his life like a cloud of poison-
gas the sinister figure of Jno. Henderson Banks,

“ Who,” he fisked, suspiciously, one day, as she
was giving him ten minutes before hurrying off to
address the Amalgamated Mothers of Manchester
on “The Novel : Should it Teach?” — “was that
man I saw you coming down the street with ? ”

“ That wasn’t a man,” replied Evangeline.
“ That was my literary agent.”

And so it proved. Jno. Henderson Banks was
now in control of Evangeline’s affairs. This out-
standing blot on the public weal was a sort of
human charlotte russe with tortoiseshell-rimmed
eye-glasses and a cooing, reverential manner
towards his female clients. He had a dark,
romantic face, a lissom figure, one of those
beastly cravat things that go twice round the
neck, and a habit of beginning his remarks with
the words “ Dear lady.” The last man, in short,
whom a fianc6 would wish to have hanging about
his betrothed. If Evangeline had to have a
literary agent, the sort of literary agent Egbert
would have selected for her would have been one
of those stout, pie-faced literary agents who chew
half-smoked cigars and wheeze as they enter the
editorial sanctum.

BEST SELLER

A jealous frown flitted across his face.

“ Looked a bit of a Gawd-help-us to me,” he
said, critically.

“ Mr. Banks,” retorted Evangeline, “ is a
superb man of business.”

“ Oh, yeah ? ” said Egbert, sneering visibly.

And there for a time the matter rested.

But not for long. On the following Monday
morning Egbert called Evangeline up on the
telephone and asked her to lunch.

“ I am sorry,” said Evangeline. “ I am
engaged to lunch with Mr. Banks.”

“ Oh ? ” said Egbert.

“Yes,” said Evangeline.

“ Ah ! ” said Egbert.

Two days later Egbert called Evangeline up on
the telephone and invited her to dinner.

“ I am sorry,” said Evangeline. “ I am dining
with Mr. Banks.”

“ Ah ? ” said Egbert.

“ Yes,” said Evangeline.

“ Oh ! ” said Egbert.

Three days after that Egbert arrived at
Evangeline’s flat with tickets for the theatre.

“ I am sorry ” began Evangeline.

“ Don’t say it,” said Egbert. “ Let me guess.
You are going to the theatre with Mr. Banks ? ”

“ Yes, I am. He has seats for the first night of

H

MULLINER NIGHTS

»34

Tchekov’s ‘ Six Corpses in Search of an Under-
taker.’ ”

“ He has, has he ? ”

“ Yes, he has.”

“ He has, eh ? ”

“ Yes, he has.”

Egbert took a couple of turns about the room,
and for a space there was silence except for the
sharp grinding of his teeth. Then he spoke.

“ Touching lightly on this gumboil Banks,”
said Egbert, “ I am the last man to stand in the
way of your having a literary agent. If you must
write novels, that is a matter between you and
your God. And, if you do see fit to write novels,
I suppose you must have a literary agent. But —
and this is where I want you to follow me very
closely— I cannot see the necessity of employing
a literary agent who looks like Lord Byron, a
literary agent who coos in your left ear, a literary
agent who not only addresses you as ‘ Dear lady,’
but appears to find it essential to the conduct of
his business to lunch, dine, and go to the theatre
with you daily.”

ii J >>

Egbert held up a compelling hand.

“ I have not finished,” he said. “ Nobody,”
he proceeded, “ could call me a narrow-minded
man. If Jno. Henderson Banks looked a shade
less like one of the great lovers of history, I would

BEST SELLER

i35

have nothing to say. If, when he talked business
to a client, Jno. Henderson Banks’s mode of vocal
delivery were even slightly less reminiscent of a
nightingale trilling to its mate, I would remain
silent. But he doesn’t, and it isn’t. And such
being the case, and taking into consideration the
fact that you are engaged to me, I feel it my duty
to instruct you to see this drooping flower far more
infrequently. In fact, I would advocate expung-
ing altogether. If he wishes to discuss business
with you, let him do it over the telephone. And
I hope he gets the wrong number.”

Evangeline had risen, and was facing him with
flashing eyes.

“ Is that so ? ” she said.

“ That,” said Egbert, “ is so.”

“ Am I a serf? ” demanded Evangeline.

“ A what ? ” said Egbert.

“ A serf. A slave. A peon. A creature
subservient to your lightest whim.”

Egbert considered the point.

“ No,” he said. “ I shouldn’t think so.”

“ No,” said Evangeline, “ I am not. And I
refuse to allow you to dictate to me in the choice
of my friends.”

Egbert stared blankly.

“ You mean, after all I have said, that you
intend to let this blighted chrysanthemum con-
tinue to frisk round ? ”

MULLINER NIGHTS

236

“ I do.”

“ You seriously propose to continue chummy
with this revolting piece of cheese ? ”

“ I do.”

“You absolutely and literally decline to give
this mistake of Nature the push ? ”

“ I do.”

“ Well ! ” said Egbert.

A pleading note came into his voice.

“ But, Evangeline, it is your Egbert who speaks.”

The haughty girl laughed a hard, bitter laugh.

“ Is it ? ” she said. She laughed again. “ Do
you imagine that we are still engaged ? ”

“ Aren’t we ? ”

“ We certainly aren’t. You have insulted me,
outraged my finest feelings, given an exhibition
of malignant tyranny which makes me thankful
that I have realized in time the sort of man you
are. Good-bye, Mr. Mulliner ! ”

“ But listen ” began Egbert.

“ Go ! ” said Evangeline. “ Here is your hat.”

She pointed imperiously to the door. A
moment later she had banged it behind him.

It was a grim-faced Egbert Mulliner who
entered the elevator, and a grimmer-faced Egbert
Mulliner who strode down Sloane Street. His
dream, he realized, was over. He laughed
harshly as he contemplated the fallen ruins of the
castle which he had built in the air.

BEST SELLER

257

Well, he still had his work.

In the offices of The Weekly Booklover it was
whispered that a strange change had come over
Egbert Mulliner. He seemed a stronger, tougher
man. His editor, who since Egbert’s illness had
behaved towards him with a touching humanity,
allowing him to remain in the office and write
paragraphs about Forthcoming Books while
others, more robust, were sent off to interview
the female novelists, now saw in him a right-hand
man on whom he could lean.

When a column on “ Myrtle Boode among
her Books ” was required, it was Egbert whom
he sent out into the No Man’s Land of Blooms-
bury. When young Eustace Johnson, a novice
who ought never to have been entrusted with
such a dangerous commission, was found walking
round in circles and bumping his head against the
railings of Regent’s Park after twenty minutes
with Laura La Motte Grindlay, the great sex
novelist, it was Egbert who was flung into the
breach. And Egbert came through, wan but
unscathed.

It was during this period that he interviewed
Mabelle Grangerson and Mrs. Goole- Plank on
the same afternoon — a feat which is still spoken
of with bated breath in the offices of The Weekly
Booklover. And not only in The Booklover offices.
To this day “ Remember Mulliner ! ” is the

MULLINER NIGHTS

238

slogan with which every literary editor encourages
the faint-hearted who are wincing and hanging
back.

“ Was Mulliner afraid ? ’* they say. “ Did
Mulliner quail ? ”

And so it came about that when a “ Chat with
Evangeline Pembury ” was needed for the big
Christmas Special Number, it was of Egbert that
his editor thought first. He sent for him.

“ Ah, Mulliner ! ”

“ Well, chief? ”

“ Stop me if you’ve heard this one before,”
said the editor, “ but it seems there was once an
Irishman, a Scotsman, and a Jew ”

Then, the formalities inseparable from an
interview between editor and assistant concluded,
he came down to business.

“ Mulliner,” he said, in that kind, fatherly way
of his which endeared him to all his staff, “ I am
going to begin by saying that it is in your power
to do a big thing for the dear old paper. But
after that I must tell you that, if you wish, you can
refuse to do it. You have been through a hard
time lately, and if you feel yourself unequal to
this task, I shall understand. But the fact is, we
have got to have a ‘ Chat with Evangeline
Pembury ’ for our Christmas Special.”

He saw the young man wince, and nodded
sympathetically.

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239

“ You think it would be too much for you ? I
feared as much. They say she is the worst of
the lot. Rather haughty and talks about uplift.
Well, never mind. I must see what I can do
with young Johnson. I hear he has quite
recovered now, and is anxious to re-establish
himself. Quite. I will send Johnson.”

Egbert Mulliner was himself again now,

“ No, chief,” he said. “ I will go.”

“ You will ? ”

“ I will.”

We shall need a column and a half.”

“ You shall have a column and a half.”

The editor turned away, to hide a not unmanly
emotion.

“ Do it now, Mulliner,” he said, “ and get it
over.”

A strange riot of emotion seethed in Egbert
Mulliner’s soul as he pressed the familiar bell
which he had thought never to press again.
Since their estrangement he had seen Evangeline
once or twice, but only in the distance. Now he
was to meet her face to face. Was he glad or sorry ?
He could not say. He only knew he loved her still.

He was in the sitting-room. How cosy it
looked, how impregnated with her presence.
There was the sofa on which he had so often sat,
his arm about her waist

MULLINER NIGHTS

240

A footstep behind him warned him that the
time had come to don the mask. Forcing his
features into an interviewer’s hard smile, he
turned.

“ Good afternoon,” he said.

She was thinner. Either she had found success
wearing, or she had been on the eighteen-day
diet. Her beautiful face seemed drawn, and,
unless he was mistaken, care-worn.

He fancied that for an instant her eyes had lit
up at the sight of him, but he preserved the formal
detachment of a stranger.

“ Good afternoon. Miss Pembury,” he said.
“ I represent The Weekly Booklover. I understand
that my editor has been in communication with
you and that you have kindly consented to tell
us a few things which may interest our readers
regarding your art and aims.”

She bit her lip.

“ Will you take a seat, Mr. ? ”

“ MuUiner,” said Egbert.

“ Mr. MuUiner,” said Evangeline, “ Do sit
down. Yes, I shall be glad to tell you anything
you wish.”

Egbert sat down.

” Are you fond of dogs. Miss Pembury ? ” he
asked.

“ I adore them,” said Evangeline.

“ 1 should like, a little later, if I may,” said

BEST SELLER

241

Egbert, “ to secure a snapshot of you being kind
to a dog. Our readers appreciate these human
touches, you understand.”

“ Oh, quite,” said Evangeline. “ I will send
out for a dog. I love dogs — and flowers.”

“You are happiest among your flowers, no
doubt ? ”

“ On the whole, yes.”

“You sometimes think they are the souls of
little children who have died in their innocence?”

“ Frequently.”

“ And now,” said Egbert, licking the tip of his
pencil, “ perhaps you would tell me something
about your ideals. How are the ideals ? ”

Evangeline hesitated.

“ Oh, they’re fine,” she said.

“ The novel,” said Egbert, “ has been de-
scribed as among this age’s greatest instruments
for uplift ? How do you check up on that ? ”

“ Oh, yes.”

“ Of course, there are novels and novels.”

“ Oh, yes.”

“ Are you contemplating a successor to ‘ Parted
Ways ’ ? ”

“ Oh, yes.”

“ Would it be indiscreet. Miss Pembury, to
inquire to what extent it has progressed ? ”

“ Oh, Egbert ! ” said Evangeline.

There are some speeches before which dignity

MULLINER NIGHTS

242

melts like ice in August, resentment takes the full
count, and the milk of human kindness surges
back into the aching heart as if the dam had
burst. Of these, “ Oh, Egbert ! especially when
accompanied by tears, is one of the most notable.

Evangeline’s “ Oh, Egbert ! ” had been accom-
panied by a Niagara of tears. She had flung
herself on the sofa and was now chewing the
cushion in an ecstasy of grief. She gulped like a
bull-pup swallowing a chunk of steak. And, on
the instant, Egbert Mulliner’s adamantine reserve
collapsed as if its legs had been knocked from
under it. He dived for the sofa. He clasped her
hand. He stroked her hair. He squeezed her
waist. He patted her shoulder. He massaged
her spine.

“ Evangeline ! ”

“ O'h, Egbert ! ”

The only flaw in Egbert Mulliner’s happiness,
as he knelt beside her, babbling comforting words,
was the gloomy conviction that Evangeline would
certainly lift the entire scene, dialogue and all,
and use it in her next novel. And it was for this
reason that, when he could manage it, he
censored his remarks to some extent.

But, as he warmed to his work, he forgot
caution altogether. She was clinging to him,
whispering his name piteously. By the time he
had finished, he had committed himself to about

BEST SELLER 243

two thousand words of a nature calculated to send
Mainprice and Peabody screaming with joy about
their office.

He refused to allow himself to worry about it.
What of it ? He had done his stuff, and if it sold
a hundred thousand copies — well, let it sell a
hundred thousand copies. Holding Evangeline
in his arms, he did not care if he was copyrighted
in every language, including the Scandinavian.

“ Oh, Egbert ! ” said Evangeline.

“ My darling ! ”

“ Oh, Egbert, I’m in such trouble.”

“ My angel ! What is it ? ”

Evangeline sat up and tried to dry her eyes.

“ It’s Mr. Banks.”

A savage frown darkened Egbert Mulliner’s
face. He told himself that he might have fore-
seen this. A man who wore a tie that went
twice round the neck was sure, sooner or later, to
inflict some hideous insult on helpless womanhood.
Add tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses, and you had
what practically amounted to a fiend in human
shape.

“ I’ll murder him,” he said. “ I ought to
have done it long ago, but one keeps putting these
things off. What has he done ? Did he force his
loathsome attentions on you ? Has that tortoise-
shell-rimmed satyr been trying to kiss you, or
something ? ”

MULLINER NIGHTS

244

“ He has been fixing me up solid.”

Egbert blinked.

“ Doing what ? ”

“ Fixing me up solid. With the magazines.
He has arranged for me to write three serials and
I don’t know how many short stories.”

“ Getting you contracts, you mean ? ”

Evangeline nodded tearfully.

“ Yes. He seems to have fixed me up solid
with almost everybody. And they’ve been send-
ing me cheques in advance — hundreds of them.
What am I to do ? Oh, what am I to do ? ”

“ Cash them,” said Egbert.

“ But afterwards ? ”

“ Spend the money.”

“ But after that ? ”

Egbert reflected.

“ Well, it’s a nuisance, of course,” he said,
“ but after that I suppose you’ll have to write the
stuff.”

Evangeline sobbed like a lost soul.

“ But I can’t ! I’ve been trying for weeks, and
I can’t write anything. And I never shall be
able to write anything. I don’t want to write
anything. I hate writing. I don’t know what
to write about. I wish I were dead.”

She clung to him.

“ I got a letter from him this morning. He has
just fixed me up solid with two more magazines.”

BEST SELLER

M5

Egbert kissed her tenderly. Before he had
become an assistant editor, he, too, had been an
author, and he understood. It is not the being
paid money in advance that jars the sensitive
artist : it is the having to work.

“ What shall I do ? ” cried Evangeline.

“ Drop the whole thing,” said Egbert. “ Evan-
geline, do you remember your first drive at golf?
I wasn’t there, but I bet it travelled about five
hundred yards and you wondered what people
meant when they talked about golf being a
difficult game. After that, for ages, you couldn’t
do anytliing right. And then, gradually, after
years of frightful toil, you began to get the knack
of it. It is just the same with writing. You’ve
had your first drive, and it has been some smite.
Now, if you’re going to stick to it, you’ve got to
do the frightful toil. What’s the use ? Drop it.”

“ And return the money ? ”

Egbert shook his head.

“ No,” he said, firmly. “ There you go too far.
Stick to the money like glue. Clutch it with
both hands. Bury it in the garden and mark the
spot with a cross.”

“ But what about the stories ? Who is going
to write them ? ”

Egbert smiled a tender smile.

“ I am,” he said. “ Before I saw the light, I,
too, used to write stearine bilge just like ‘ Parted

MULLINER NIGHTS

246

Ways.* When we are married, I shall say to you,
if I remember the book of words correctly, ‘ With
all my worldly goods I thee endow.’ They will
include three novels I was never able to kid a
publisher into printing, and at least twenty short
stories no editor would accept. I give them to
you freely. You can have the first of the novels
to-night, and we will sit back and watch Main-
price and Peabody sell half a million copies.”

“ Oh, Egbert ! ” said Evangeline.

“ Evangeline ! ” said Egbert.

VIII

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP

F rom the moment the Draught Stout
entered the bar-parlour of the Anglers’
Rest, it had been obvious that he was not
his usual cheery self. His face was drawn and
twisted, and he sat with bowed head in a distant
corner by the window, contributing nothing to
the conversation which, with Mr. Mulliner as
its centre, was in progress around the fire. From
time to time he heaved a hollow sigh.

A sympathetic Lemonade and Angostura,
putting down his glass, went across and laid a
kindly hand on the sufferer’s shoulder.

“ What is it, old man ? ” he asked. “ Lost a
friend ? ”

“ Worse,” said the Draught Stout. “ A
mystery novel. Got half-way through it on the
journey down here, and left it in the train.”

“ My nephew Cyril, the interior decorator,”
said Mr. Mulliner, “ once did the very same
thing. These mental lapses are not infrequent.”
“And now,” proceeded the Draught Stout,

MULLINER NIGHTS

248

“ I’m going to have a sleepless night, wondering
who poisoned Sir Geoffrey Tuttle, Bart.”

“ The Bart, was poisoned, was he

“You never said a truer word. Personally, I
think it was the Vicar who did him in. He was
known to be interested in strange poisons.”

Mr. Mulliner smiled indulgently.

“ It was not the Vicar,” he said. “ I happen
to have read ‘ The Murglow Manor Mystery.’
The guilty man was the plumber.”

“ What plumber ? ”

“ The one who comes in chapter two to mend
the shower-bath. Sir Geoffrey had wronged his
aunt in the year ’96, so he fastened a snake in
the nozzle of the shower-bath with glue ; and
when Sir Geoffrey turned on the stream the hot
water meked the glue. This released the snake,
which dropped through one of the holes, bit the
Baronet in the leg, and disappeared down tlie
waste-pipe.”

“ But that can’t be right,” said the Draught
Stout. “ Between chapter two and the murder
there was an interval of several days.”

“ The plumber forgot his snake and had to go
back for it,” explained Mr. Mulliner. “ I trust
that this revelation will prove sedative.”

“ I feel a new man,” said the Draught Stout.
“ I’d have lain awake worrying about that
murder all night.”

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 249

“ I suppose you would. My nephew Cyril
was just the same. Nothing in this modern life
of ours,” said Mr. Mulliner, taking a sip of his
hot Scotch and lemon, “ is more remarkable than
the way in which the mystery novel has gripped
the public. Your true enthusiast, deprived of his
favourite reading, will stop at nothing in order to
get it. He is like a victim of the drug habit when
withheld from cocaine. My nephew Cyri ”

“ Amazing the things people will leave in
trains,” said a Small Lager. “ Bags . . . umbrel-
las .. . even stuffed chimpanzees, occasionally,
I’ve been told. I heard a story the other day ”

My nephew Cyril (said Mr. Mulliner) had a
greater passion for mystery stories than anyone
I have ever met. I attribute this to the fact
that, like so many interior decorators, he was a
fragile, delicate young fellow, extraordinarily
vulnerable to any ailment that happened to be
going the rounds. Every time he caught mumps
or influenza or German measles or the like, he
occupied the period of convalescence in reading
mystery stories. And, as the appetite grows by
what it feeds on, he had become, at the time at
which this narrative opens, a confirmed addict.
Not only did he devour every volume of this type
on which he could lay his hands, but he was also
to be found at any theatre which was offering the

MULLINER NIGHTS

250

kind of drama where skinny arms come unex-
pectedly out of the chiffonier and the audience
feels a mild surprise if the lights stay on for ten
consecutive minutes.

And it was during a performance of “ The Grey
Vampire ” at the St. James’s that he found
himself sitting next to Amelia Bassett, the girl
whom he was to love with all the stored-up
fervour of a man who hitherto had been inclined
rather to edge away when in the presence of the
other sex.

He did not know her name was Amelia Bassett.
He had never seen her before. All he knew was
that at last he had met his fate, and for the whole
of the first act he was pondering the problem of
how he was to make her acquaintance.

It was as the lights went up for the first inter-
mission that he was aroused from his thoughts by
a sharp pain in the right leg. He was just
wondering whether it was gout or sciatica when,
glancing down, he perceived that what had
happened was that his neighbour, absorbed by
the drama, had absent-mindedly collected a
handful of his flesh and was twisting it in an
ecstasy of excitement.

It seemed to Cyril a good point d’appui.

“ Excuse me,” he said.

The girl turned. Her eyes were glowing, and
the tip of her nose still quivered.

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 2JI

“ I beg your pardon ? ”

“ My leg,” said Cyril. “ Might I have it back,
if you’ve finished with it ? ”

The girl looked down. She started visibly.

“ I’m awfully sorry,” she gasped.

“ Not at all,” said Cyril. “ Only too glad to
have been of assistance.”

“ I got carried away.”

“ You are evidently fond of mystery plays.”

“ I love them.”

“ So do I. And mystery novels ? ”

“ Oh, yes ! ”

“ Have you read ‘ Blood on the Banisters ’ ? ”

“ Oh, yes ! I thought it was better than
‘ Severed Throats.’ ”

“ So did I,” said Cyril. “ Much better.
Brighter murders, subtler detectives, crisper clues
. . . better in every way.”

The two twin souls gazed into each other’s
eyes. There is no surer foundation for a
beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in
literature.

“ My name is Amelia Bassett,” said the girl.

“ Mine is Cyril Mulliner. Bassett ? ” He
frowned thoughtfully. “ The name seems
familiar.”

“ Perhaps you have heard of my mother.
Lady Bassett. She’s rather a well-known big-
game hunter and explorer. She tramps through

MULLINER NIGHTS

252

jungles and things. She’s gone out to the lobby
for a smoke. By the way ” — ^she hesitated — “ if
she finds us talking, will you remember that
we met at the Polterwoods’ ? ”

“ I quite understand.”

“You see, mother doesn’t like people who talk
to me without a formal introduction. And,
when mother doesn’t like anyone, she is so apt
to hit them over the head with some hard
instrument.”

“ I see,” said Cyril. “ Like the Human Ape
in ‘ Gore by the Gallon ’.”

“ Exactly. Tell me,” said the girl, changing
the subject, “ if you were a millionaire, would
you rather be stabbed in the back with a paper-
knife or found dead without a mark on you,
staring with blank eyes at some appalling sight ? ”

Cyril was about to reply when, looking past
her, he found himself virtually in the latter
position. A woman of extraordinary formid-
ableness had lowered herself into the seat beyond
and was scrutinizing him keenly through a
tortoiseshell lorgnette. She reminded Cyril of
Wallace Beery.

“ Friend of yours, Amelia ' she said.

“ This is Mr. Mulliner, mother. We met at
the Polterwoods’.”

“ Ah ? ” said Lady Bassett.

She inspected Cyril through her lorgnette.

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 255

“ Mr. Mulliner,” she said, “ is a little like the
chief of the Lower Isisi — though, of course, he
was darker and had a ring through his nose. A
dear, good fellow,” she continued reminiscently,
“ but inclined to become familiar under the
influence of trade gin. I shot him in the
Icg/^

“ Er — why ? ” asked Cyril.

“ He was not behaving like a gentleman,” said
Lady Bassett primly.

“ After taking your treatment,” said Cyril,
awed, “ I’ll bet he could have written a Book of
Etiquette.”

“ I believe he did,” said Lady Bassett carelessly.
“You must come and call on us some afternoon.
Mr. Mulliner. I am in the telephone book.
If you are interested in man-eating pumas, I can
S'how you some nice heads.”

The curtain rose on act two, and Cyril returned
to his thoughts. Love, he felt joyously, had come
into his life at last. But then so, he had to admit,
had Lady Bassett. There is, he reflected, always
something.

I will pass lightly over the period of Cyril’s
wooing. Suffice it to say that his progress was
rapid. From the moment he told Amelia that
he had once met Dorothy Sayers, he never looked
back. And one afternoon, calling and finding

MULLINER NIGHTS

254

that Lady Bassett was away in the country, he
took the girl’s hand in his and told his love.

For a while all was well. Amelia’s reactions
proved satisfactory to a degree. She checked up
enthusiastically on his proposition. Falling into
his arms, she admitted specifically that he was
her Dream Man.

Then came the jarring note.

“ But it’s no use,” she said, her lovely eyes
filling with tears. “ Mother will never give her
consent.”

“ Why not ? ” said Cyril, stunned. “ What is it
she objects to about me ? ”

“ I don’t know. But she generally alludes to
you as ‘ that pipsqueak ’.”

“ Pipsqueak ? ” said Cyril. “ What is a pip-
squeak ? ”

“ I’m not quite sure, but it’s something mother
doesn’t like very much. It’s a pity she ever
found out that you are an interior decorator.”

“ An honourable profession,” said Cyril, a
little stiffly.

“ I know ; but what she admires are men who
have to do with the great open spaces.”

“ Well, I also design ornamental gardens.”

** Yes,” said the girl doubtfully, “ but still ”

” And, dash it,” said Cyril indignantly, “ this
isn’t the Victorian age. All that business of
Mother’s Consent went out twenty years ago.”

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP ZJf

“ Yes, but no one told mother.”

“ It’s preposterous ! ” cried Cyril. “ I never
heard such rot. Let’s just slip off and get
married quietly and send her a picture postcard
from Venice or somewhere, with a cross and a
‘ This is our room. Wish you were with us ’ on
it.”

The girl shuddered.

“ She would be with us,” she said. “ You
don’t know mother. The moment she got that
picture postcard, she would come over to where-
cver we were and put you across her knee and
spank you with a hair-brush. I don’t think I
could ever feel the same towards you if I saw you
lying across mother’s knee, being spanked with a
hair-brush. It would spoil the honeymoon.”

Cyril frowned. But a man who has spent most
of his life trying out a series of patent medicines
is always an optimist.

“ There is only one thing to be done,” he said.

I shall see your mother and try to make her
listen to reason. Where is she now ? ”

“ She left this morning for a visit to the
Winghams in Sussex.”

“ Excellent ! I know the Winghams. In fact,
I have a standing invitation to go and stay with
them whenever I like. I’ll send them a wire and
push down this evening. I will oil up to your
mother sedulously and try to correct her present

MULLINER NIGHTS

256

unfavourable impression of me. Then, choosing
my moment, I will .’.hoot her the news. It may
work. It may not work. But at any rate I
consider it a fair sporting venture.”

“ But you are so diffident, Cyril. So shrinking.
So retiring and shy. How can you carry through
such a task ? ”

“ Love will nerve me,”

“ Enough, do you think ? Remember what
mother is. Wouldn’t a good, strong drink be
more help ? ”

Cyril looked doubtful.

” My doctor has always forbidden me alcoholic
stimulants. He says they increase the blood
pressure.”

“ Well, when you meet mother, you will need
all the blood pressure you can get, I really do
advise you to fuel up a little before you see her.”

“ Yes,” agreed Cyril, nodding thoughtfully.
“ I think you’re right. It shall be as you say.
Good-bye, my angel one.”

“ Good-bye, Cyril, darling. You will think
of me every minute while you’re gone ? ”

“ Every single minute. Well, practically
every single minute. You see, I have just got
Horatio Slingsby’s latest book, ‘ Strychnine in
the Soup,’ and I shall be dipping into that from
time to time. But all the rest of the while . . .
Have you read it, by the way ? ”

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 457

“ Not yet. I had a copy, but mother took
it with her.”

“ Ah ? Well, if I am to catch a train that
will get me to Barkley for dinner, I must be
going. Good-bye, sweetheart, and never forget
that Gilbert Glendale in ‘ The Missing Toe ’ won
the girl he loved in spite of being up against
two mysterious stranglers and the entire Black
Moustache gang.”

He kissed her fondly, and went off to pack.

Barkley Towers, the country seat of Sir
Mortimer and Lady Wingham, was two hours
from London by rail. Thinking of Amelia and
reading the opening chapters of Horatio Slingsby’s
powerful story, Cyril found the journey pass
rapidly. In fact, so preoccupied wais he that
it was only as the train started to draw out of
Barkley Regis station that he realized where he
was. He managed to hurl himself on to the
platform just in time.

As he had taken the five-seven express, stopping
only at Gluebury Peveril, he arrived at Barkley
Towers at an hour which enabled him not only
to be on hand for dinner but also to take part
in the life-giving distribution of cockt<iils which
preceded the meal.

The house-party, he perceived on entering the
drawing-room, was a small one. Besides Lady

MULLINER NIGHTS

258

Bassett and himself, the only visitors were a
nondescript couple of the name of Sin^pson, and
a tall, bronzed, handsome man with flashing eyes
who, his hostess informed him in 'a whispered
aside, was Lester Mapledurham (pronounced
Mum), the explorer and big-game hunter.

Perhaps it was the oppressive sensation of
being in the same room with two explorers and
big-game hunters that brought home to Cyril
the need for following Amelia’s advice as quickly
as possible. But probably the mere sight of Lady
Bassett alone would have been enough to make
him break a lifelong abstinence. To her normal
resemblance to Wallace Beery she appeared now
to have added a distinct suggestion of Victor
McLaglen, and the spectacle was sufficient to
send Cyril leaping toward the cocktail tray.

After three rapid glasses he felt a better and a
braver man. And so lavishly did he irrigate the
ensuing dinner with hock,* sherry, champagne,
old brandy and port, that at the conclusion of the
meal he was pleased to find that his diffidence
had completely vanished. He rose from the table
feeling equal to asking a dozen Lady Bassetts
for their consent to marry a dozen daughters.

In fact, as he confided to the butler, prodding
him genially in the ribs as he spoke, if Lady
Bassett attempted to put on any dog with hirriy
he would know what to do about it. He made

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 259

no threats, he explained to the butler, he simply
stated that he would know what to do about it.
The butler said “ Very good, sir. Thank you,
sir,” and the incident closed.

It had been Cyril’s intention — ^feeling, as he
did, in this singularly uplifted and dominant
frame of mind — to get hold of Amelia’s mother
and start oiling up to her immediately after
dinner. But, what with falling into a doze in the
smoking-room and then getting into an argument
on theology with one of the under-footmen whom
he met in the hall, he did not reaeh the drawing-
room until nearly half-past ten. And he was
annoyed, on walking in with a merry cry of
“ Lady Bassett ! Call for Lady Bassett ! ” on
his lips, to discover that she had retired to her
room.

Had Cyril’s mood been even slightly less
elevated, this news might have acted as a check
on his enthusiasm. So generous, however, had
been Sir Mortimer’s hospitality that he merely
nodded eleven times, to indicate comprehension,
and then, having ascertained that his quarry was
roosting in the Blue Room, sped thither with a
brief “Tally-ho ! ”

Arriving at the Blue Room, he banged heartily
on the door and breezed in. He found Lady
Bassett propped up with pillows. She was

MULLINER NIGHTS

260

smoking a cigar and reading a book. And that
book, Cyril saw with intense surprise and resent-
ment, was none other than Horatio Slingsby’s
“ Strychnine in the Soup.”

The spectacle brought him to an abrupt halt.

“ Well, I’m dashed ! ” he cried. “ Well, I’m
blowed ! What do you mean by pinching my
book ? ”

Lady Bassett had lowered her cigar. She now
raised her eyebrows.

“ What are you doing in my room, Mr.
Mulliner ? ”

“ It’s a little hard,” sziid Cyril, trembling with
self-pity. “I go to enormous expense to buy
detective stories, and no sooner is my back
turned than people rush about the place sneaking
them.”

“ This book belongs to my daughter Amelia.”

“ Good old Amelia ! ” said Cyril cordially.

One of the best.”

“ I borrowed it to read in the train. Now will
you kindly tell me what you are doing in my
room, Mr. Mulliner ? ”

Cyril smote his forehead.

“ Of course. I remember now. It all comes
back to me. She told me you had taken it.
And, what’s more, I’ve suddenly recollected
something which clears you completely. I was
hustled and bustled at the end of the journey. I

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 261

sprang to my feet, hurled bags on to the platform
— in a word, lost my head. And, like a chump,
I went and left my copy of ‘ Strychnine in the
Soup ’ in the train. Well, I can only apologize.”

“ You can not only apologize. You can also
tell me what you are doing in my room.”

“ What I am doing in your room ? ”

“ Exactly.”

“ Ah ! ” said Cyril, sitting down on the bed.
“ You may well ask.”

“ I have asked. Three times.”

Cyril closed his eyes. For some reason, his
mind seemed cloudy and not at its best.

“ If you are proposing to go to sleep here, Mr.
Mulliner,” said Lady Bassett, “ tell me, and I
shall know what to do about it.”

The phrase touched a chord in Cyril’s memory.
He recollected now his reasons for being where
he was. Opening his eyes, he fixed them on her.

“ Lady Bassett,” he said, “ you are, I believe,
an explorer ? ”

“ I am.”

“In the course of your explorations, you have
wandered through many a jungle in many a
distant land ? ”

“ I have.”

“ Tell me. Lady Bassett,” said Cyril keenly,
“ while making a pest of yourself to the denizens
of those jungles, did you notice one thing ? I

MULLINER NIGHTS

262

allude to the fact that Love is everywhere — aye,
even in the jungle. Love, independent of bounds
and frontiers, of nationality and species, works
its spell on every living thing. So'that, no matter
whether an individual be a Congo native, an
American song- writer, a jaguar, an armadillo,
a bespoke tailor, or a tsetse-tsetse fly, he will
infallibly seek his mate. So why shouldn’t an
interior decorator and designer of ornamental
gardens ? I put this to you, Lady Bassett.”

“ Mr. Mulliner,” said his room-mate, “ you
are blotto ! ”

Cyril waved his hand in a spacious gesture,
and fell off the bed.

“ Blotto I may be,” he said, resuming his seat,
“ but, none the less, argue as you will, you can’t
get away from the fact that I love your daughter
Amelid.”

There was a tense pause.

“ What did you say ? ’’.cried Lady Bassett.

When ? ” said Cyril absently, for he had
fallen into a day-dream and, as far as the inter-
vening blankets would permit, was playing “ This
little pig went to market ” with his companion’s
toes.

“ Did 1 hear you say . . . my daughter
Amelia ? ”

“ Grey-eyed girl, medium height, sort of
browny-red hair,” said Cyril, to assist her memory.

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 265

Dash it, you must know Amelia. She goes
everywhere. And let me tell you something,
Mrs. — I’ve forgotten your name. We’re going
to be married, if I can obtain her foul mother’s
consent. Speaking as an old friend, what would
you say the chances were ? ”

“ Extremely slight.”

“ Eh ? ”

“ Seeing that I am Amelia’s mother. . . .”

Cyril blinked, genuinely surprised.

“ Why, so you are ! I didn’t recognize you.
Have you been there all the time ? ”

“ I have.”

Suddenly Cyril’s gaze hardened. He drew
himself up stiffly.

“ What are you doing in my bed ? ” he
demanded.

“ This is not your bed.”

“ Then whose is it ? ”

“ Mine.”

Cyril shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

“ Well, it all looks very funny to me,” he said.
“ I suppose I must believe your story, but, I
repeat, I consider the whole thing odd, and I
propose to institute very strict enquiries. I may
tell you that I happen to know the ringleaders.
I wish you a very hearty good night.”

It was perhaps an hour later that Cyril, who

MULLINER NIGHTS

264

had been walMng on the terrace in deep thought,
repaired once more to the Blue Room in quest
of information. Running over the details of the
recent interview in his head, he had suddenly
discovered that there was a point which had not
been satisfactorily cleared up.

“ I say,” he said.

Lady Bassett looked up from her book, plainly
annoyed.

“ Have you no bedroom of your own, Mr.
Mulliner ? ”

“ Oh, yes,” said Cyril. “ They’ve bedded me
out in the Moat Room. But there was some-
thing I wanted you to tell me.”

“ Well ? ”

“ Did you say I might or mightn’t ? ”

“ Might or mightn’t what ? ”

" Marry Amelia ? ”

“ No. You may not.”

“ No ? ”

“ No ! ”

“ Oh ! ” said Cyril. “ Well, pip-pip once more.”

It was a moody Cyril Mulliner who withdrew
to the Moat Room. He now realized the position
of affairs. The mother of the girl he loved
refused to accept him as an eligible suitor. A
dickens of a situation to be in, felt Cyril, sombrely
unshoeing himself.

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 26 j

Then he brightened a little. His life, he
reflected, might be wrecked, but he still had two-
thirds of “ Strychnine in the Soup ” to read.

At the moment when the train reached
Barkley Regis station, Gyiil had just got to the
bit where Detective Inspector Mould looks
through the half-open cellar door and, drawing
in his breath with a sharp, hissing sound, recoils
in horror. It was obviously going to be good.
He was just about to proceed to the dressing-table
where, he presumed, the footman had placed the
book on unpacking his bag, when an icy stream
seemed to flow down the centre of his spine and
the room and its contents danced before him.

Once more he had remembered that he had
left the volume in the train.

He uttered an animal cry and tottered to a chair.

The subject of bereavement is one that has
often been treated powerfully by poets, who have
run the whole gamut of the emotions while laying
bare for us the agony of those who have lost
parents, wives, children, gazelles, money, fame,
dogs, cats, doves, sweethearts, horses, and even
collar-studs. But no poet has yet treated of the
most poignant bereavement of all — that of the
man half-way through a detective story who finds
himself at bedtime without the book.

Cyril did not care to think of the night that
lay before him. Already his brain was lashing

266 MULLINER NIGHTS

itself from side to side like a wounded snake as it
sought for some explanation of Inspector Mould’s
strange behaviour. Horatio Slingsby was an
author who could be relied on to keep faith with
his public. He was not the sort of man to fob the
reader off in the next chapter with the statement
that what had made Inspector Mould look
horrified was the fact that he had suddenly
remembered that he had forgotten all about the
letter his wife had given him to post. If looking
through cellar doors disturbed a Slingsby
detective, it was because a dismembered corpse
lay there, or at least a severed hand.

A soft moan, as of some thing in torment,
escaped Cyril. What to do ? What to do ?
Even a makeshift substitute for “ Strychnine in
the Soup ” was beyond his reach. He knew so
well what he would find if he went to the library
in search of something to read. Sir Mortimer
Wingham was heavy and country-squire-ish.
His wife affected strange religions. Their litera-
ture was in keeping with their tastes. In the
library there would be books on Ba-ha-ism,
volumes in old leather of the Rural Encyclo-
paedia, “ My Two Years in Sunny Ceylon,” by
the Rev. Orlo Waterbury . . . but of anything
that would interest Scotland Yard, of anything
with a bit of blood in it and a corpse or two into
which a fellow could get his teeth, not a trace.

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 267

What, then, coming right back to it, to do ?

And suddenly, as if in answer to the question,
came the solution. Electrified, he saw the way
out.

The hour was now well advanced. By this
time Lady Bassett must surely be asleep.
“ Strychnine in the Soup” would be lying on the
table beside her bed. All he had to do was to
creep in and grab it.

The more he considered the idea, the better it
looked. It was not as if he did not know the
way to Lady Bassett’s room or the topography of it
when he got there. It seemed to him as if most
of his later life had been spent in Lady Bassett’s
room. He could find his way about it with his
eyes shut.

He hesitated no longer. Donning a dressing-
gown, he left his room and hurried along the
passage.

Pushing open the door of the Blue Room and
closing it softly behind him, Cyril stood for a
moment full of all those emotions which come to
man revisiting some long-familiar spot. There
the dear old room was, just the same as ever.
How it all came back to him ! The place was
in darkness, but that did not deter him. He
knew where the bed-table was, and he made for
it with stealthy steps.

In the manner in which Cyril Mulliner

268

MULLINER NIGHTS

advanced towards the bed-table there was much
which would have reminded Lady Bassett, had
she been an eye-witness, of the fiirtive prowl of
the Lesser Iguanodon tracking its prey. In
only one respect did Cyril and this creature of
the wild differ in their technique. Iguanodons
— and this applies not only to the Lesser but to the
Larger Iguanodon — seldom, if ever, trip over
cords on the floor and bring the lamps to which
they are attached crashing to the ground like a
ton of bricks.

Cyril did. Scarcely had he snatched up the
book and placed it in the pocket of his dressing-
gown, when his foot became entangled in the
trailing cord and the lamp on the table leaped
nimbly into the air and, to the accompaniment
of a sound not unlike that made by a hundred
plates coming apart simultaneously in the hands
of a hundred scullery-maids, nose-dived to the
floor and became a total loss.

At the same moment. Lady Bassett, who had
been chasing a bat out of the window, stepped in
from the balcony and switched on the lights.

To say that Cyril Mulliner was taken aback
would be to understate the facts. Nothing like
his recent misadventure had happened to him
since his eleventh year, when, going surrep-
titiously to his mother’s cupboard for jam, he had
jerked three shelves dov/n on his head, containing

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 269

milk, butter, home-made preserves, pickles,
cheese, eggs, cakes, and potted-meat. His
feelings on the present occasion closely paralleled
that boyhood thrill.

Lady Bassett also appeared somewhat discom-
posed.

“ You ! ” she said.

Cyril nodded, endeavouring the while to smile
in a reassuring manner.

“ Hullo ! ” he said.

His hostess’s manner was now one of unmis-
takable displeasure.

“ Am I not to have a moment of privacy, Mr.
Mulliner ? ” she asked severely. “ I am, I trust,
a broad-minded woman, but I cannot approve
of this idea of communal bedrooms.”

Cyril made an effort to be conciliatory.

“ I do keep coming in, don’t I ? ” be said.

“ You do,” agreed Lady Bassett. “ Sir
Mortimer informed me, on learning that I had
been given this room, that it was supposed to be
haunted. Had I known that it was haunted by
you, Mr. Mulliner, I should have packed up and
gone to the local inn.”

Cyril bowed his head. The censure, he could
not but feel, was deserved.

“ I admit,” he said, “ that my conduct has
been open to criticism. In extenuation, I can
but plead my great love. This is no idle social

MULLINER NIGHTS

270

call, Lady Bassett. I looked in because I wished
to take up again this matter of my marrying your
daughter Amelia. You say I can’t. Why can’t
I ? Answer me that, Lady Bassett.”

“ I have other views for Amelia,” said Lady
Bassett stiffly. “ When my daughter gets married
it will not be to a spineless, invertebrate product
of our modern hot-house civilization, but to a
strong, upstanding, keen-eyed, two-fisted he-man
of the open spaces. I have no wish to hurt your
feelings, Mr. Mulliner,” she continued, more
kindly, “ but you must admit that you are, when
all is said and done, a pipsqueak.”

“ I deny it,” cried Cyril warmly. “ I don’t
even know what a pipsqueak is.”

“ A pipsqueak is a man who has never seen
the suq rise beyond the reaches of the Lower
Zambezi; who would not know what to do if
faced by a charging rhinoceros. What, pray,
would you do if faced by a charging rhinoceros,
Mr. Mulliner ? ”

“ I am not likely,” said Cyril, “ to move in the
same social circles as charging rhinoceri.”

“ Or take another simple case, such as happens
every day. Suppose you are crossing a rude
bridge over a stream in Equatorial Africa. You
have been thinking of a hundred trifles and are in
a reverie. From this you wake to discover that
in the branches overhead a python is extending

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 27I

its fangs towards you. At the same time, you
observe that at one end of the bridge is a crouch-
ing puma ; at the other are two head hunters —
call them Pat and Mike — with poisoned blow-
pipes to their lips. Below, half hidden in the
stream, is an alligator. What would you do in
such a case, Mr. Mulliner ? ”

Cyril weighed the point.

“ I should feci embarrassed,” he had to admit.
“ I shouldn’t know where to look.”

Lady Bassett laughed an amused, scornful little
laugh.

“ Precisely. Such a situation would not, how-
ever, disturb Lester Mapledurham.”

“ Lester Mapledurham ! ”

“ The man who is to marry my daughter
Amelia. He asked me for her hand shortly after
dinner.”

Cyril reeled. The blow, falling so suddenly
and unexpectedly, had made him feel boneless.
And yet, he felt, he might have expected this.
These explorers and big-game hunters stick
together.

“ In a situation such as I have outlined, Lester
Mapledurham would simply drop from the bridge,
wait till the alligator made its rush, insert a stout
stick between its jaws, and then hit it in the eye
with a spear, being careful to avoid its Izishing
tail. He would then drift down-stream and land

MULLINER NIGHTS

l-JZ

at some safer spot. That is the type of man I
wish for as a son-in-law.”

Cyril left the room without a word. Not even
the fact that he now had “ Strychnine in the
Soup ” in his possession could cheer his mood of
unrelieved blackness. Back in his room, he
tossed the book moodily on to the bed and began
to pace the floor. And he had scarcely completed
two laps when the door opened.

For an instant, when he heard the click of the
latch, Cyril supposed that his visitor must be Lady
Bassett, who, having put two and two together
on discovering her loss, had come to demand her
property back. And he cursed the rashness
which had led him to fling it so carelessly upon
the bed, in full view.

But it was not Lady Bassett. The intruder was
Lester Mapledurham. Clad in a suit of pyjamas
which in their general colour scheme reminded
Cyril of a boudoir he had" recently decorated for
a Society poetess, he stood with folded arms,
his keen eyes fixed menacingly on the young
man.

“ Give me those jewels ! ” said Lester Maple-
durham.

Cyril was at a loss.

“Jewels?”

“Jewels ! ”

“ What jewels ? ”

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 275

Lester Mapledurham tossed his head im-
patiently.

“ I don’t know what jewels. They may be the
Wingham Pearls or the Bassett Diamonds or the
Simpson Sapphires. I’m not sure which room it
was I saw you coming out of.”

Cyril began to understand.

“ Oh, did you see me coming out of a room ? ”

“ I did. I heard a crash and, when I looked
out, you were hurrying along the corridor.”

“ I can explain everything,” said Cyril, “ I
had just been having a chat with Lady Bassett
on a personal matter. Nothing to do with
diamonds.”

“ You’re sure ? ” said Mapledurham.

“ Oh, rather,” said Cyril. “ We talked about
rhinoceri and pythons and her daughter Amelia
and alligators and all that sort of thing, and
then I came away.”

Lester Mapledurham seemed only half
convinced.

“ H’m ! ” he said. “ Well, if anything is
missing in the morning, I shall know what to do
about it.” His eye fell on the bed. “ Hullo ! ”
he went on, with sudden animation. “ Slingsby’s
latest ? Well, well ! I’ve been wanting to get
hold of this. I hear it’s good. The Leeds
Mercury says : ‘ These gripping pages. . . .’ ”

He turned to the door, and with a hideous

MULLINER NIGHTS

m

pang of agony Cyril perceived that it was plainly
his intention to take the book with him. It
was swinging lightly from a bronzed hand about
the size of a medium ham.

“ Here ! ” he cried, vehemently.

Lester Mapledurham turned.

“ Well ? ”

Oh, nothing,” said Cyril. “Just good
night.”

He flung himself face downwards on the bed
as the door closed, cursing himself for the craven
cowardice which had kept him from snatching the
book from the explorer. There had been a
moment when he had almost nerved himself to
the deed, but it was followed by another moment
in which he had caught the other’s eye. And it
was as. if he had found himself exchanging
glances with Lady Bassett’s charging rhinoceros.

And now, thanks to this pusillanimity, he was
once more “ Strychnine in' the Soup ’’-less.

How long Cyril lay there, a prey to the
gloomiest thoughts, he could not have said; He
was aroused from his meditations by the sound
of the door opening again.

Lady Bassett stood before him. It was plain
that she was deeply moved. In addition to
resembling Wallace Beery and Victor McLaglen,
she now had a distinct look of George Bancroft.

She pointed a quivering finger at Cyril.

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP 275

“ You hound ! ” she cried. “ Give me that
book ! ”

Cyril maintained his poise with a strong
effort.

“ What book ? ”

“ The book you sneaked out of my room ? ”

“ Has someone sneaked a book out of your
room ? ” Cyril struck his forehead. “ Great
heavens ! ” he cried.

“ Mr. Mulliner,” said Lady Bassett coldly,
“ more book and less gibbering ! ”

Cyril raised a hand.

“ I know who’s got your book. Lester
Mapledurham ! ”

“ Don’t be absurd.”

“ He has, I tell you. As I was on my way to
your room just now, I saw him coming out,
carrying something in a furtive manner. I
remember wondering a bit at the time. He’s in
the Clock Room. If we pop along there now>
we shall just catch him red-handed.”

Lady Bzissett reflected.

“ It is impossible,” she said at length. “ He
is incapable of such an act. Lester Mapledurham
is a man who once killed a lion with a sardine-
opener.”

“ The very worst sort,” said Cyril. “ Ask
anyone.”

“ And he is engaged to my daughter.” Lady

MULLINER NIGHTS

276

Bassett paused. “ Well, he won’t be long, if I
find that what you say is true. Gome, Mr.
Mulliner ! ”

Together the two passed down the silent
passage. At the door of the Clock Room they
paused. A light streamed from beneath it. Cyril
pointed silently to this sinister evidence of reading
in bed, and noted that his companion stiffened
and said something to herself in an undertone in
what appeared to be some sort of native dialect.

The next moment she had flung the door open
and, with a spring like that of a crouching zebu,
had leaped to the bed and wrenched the book
from Lester Mapledurham’s hands.

“ So ! ” said Lady Bassett.

“ So ! ” said Cyril, feeling that he could not
do better than follow the lead of such a woman.

“ Hullo ! ” said Lester Mapledurham, sur-
prised. “ Something the matter ? ”

“ So it W3is you who stole my book ! ”

“ Your book ? ” said Lester Mapledurham.
“ I borrowed this from Mr. Mulliner there.”

“ A likely story ! ” said Cyril. “ Lady Bassett
is aware that I left my copy of ‘ Strychnine in the
Soup ’ in the train.”

“ Certainly,” said Lady Bassett. “ It s no use
talking, young man, I have caught you with the
goods. And let me tell you one thing that may
be of interest. If you think that, after a dastardly

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP

^77

act like this, you are going to many Amelia,
forget it ! ”

“ Wipe it right out of your mind,” said Cyril.

“ But listen ! ”

“ I will not listen. Come, Mr. Mulliner.”

She left the room, followed by Cyril. For some
moments they walked in silence.

“ A merciful escape,” said Cyril.

“ For whom ? ”

“ For Amelia. My gosh, think of her tied to
a man like that. Must be a relief to you to feel
that she’s going to marry a respectable interior
decorator.”

Lady Bassett halted. They were standing
outside the Moat Room now. She looked at
Cyril, her eyebrows raised.

“ Are you under the impression, Mr. Mulliner,”
she said, “ that, on the strength of what has
happened, I intend to accept you as a son-in-
law ? ”

Cyril reeled.

“ Don’t you ? ”

“ Certainly not.”

Something inside Cyril seemed to snap.
Recklessness descended upon him. He became
for a space a thing of courage and fire, like the
African leopard in the mating season.

“ Oh ! ” he said.

And, deftly whisking “ Strychnine in the Soup ”

278 MULLINER. NIGHTS

from his companion’s hand, he darted into his
room, banged the door, and bolted it.

“ Mr. Mulliner ! ”

It was Lady Bassett’s voice, coming pleadingly
through the woodwork. It was pMn that she
was shaken to the core, and Cyril smiled
sardonically. He was in a position to dictate
terms.

“ Give me that book, Mr. Mulliner ! ”

“ Certainly not,” said Cyril. “ I intend to
read it myself. I hear good reports of it on
every side. The Peebles Intelligencer says :
‘ Vigorous and absorbing.’ ”

A low wail from the other side of the door
answered him.

“ Of course,” said Cyril, suggestively, “ if it
were rny future mother-in-law who was speaking,
her word would naturally be law.”

There was a silence outside.

“ Very well,” said Lady Bassett.

“ I may marry Amelia ? ”

“ You may,”

Cyril unbolted the door.

“ Come — Mother,” he said, in a soft, kindly
voice. “ We will read it together, down in the
library.”

Lady Bassett was still shaken.

I hope I have acted for the best,” she said.

“ You have,” said Cyril.

STRYCHNINE IN THE SOUP

279

“ You will make Amelia a good husband ? ”

“ Grade A,” Cyril assured her.

“ Well, even if you don’t,” said Lady Bassett
resignedly, “ I can’t go to bed without that book.
I had just got to the bit where Inspector Mould
is trapped in the underground den of the Faceless
Fiend.”

Cyril quivered.

“ Is there a Faceless Fiend ? ” he cried.

“ There are two Faceless Fiends,” said Lady
Bassett.

“ My gosh ! ” said Cyril. “ Let’s hurry.”

rx

GALA NIGHT

T he bar-parlour of the Anglers’ Rest was
fuller than usual. Our local race meet-
ing had been held during the afternoon,
and this always means a rush of custom. In
addition to the habituSs, that faithful little band
of listeners which sits nightly at the feet of Mr.
Mulliner, there were present some half a dozen
strangers. One of these, a fair-haired young
Stout and Mild, wore the unmistakable air of a
man who has not been fortunate in his selections.
He sat staring before him with dull eyes and a
drooping jaw, and nothing that his companions
could do seemed able to cheer him up.

A genial Sherry and Bitters, one of the Tegular
patrons, eyed the sufferer with bluff sympathy.

“ What your friend appears to need, gentle-
men,” he said, “ is a dose of Mulliner’s Buck-U-
Uppo.”

“ What’s Mulliner’s Buck-U-Uppo ? ” asked
one of the strangers, a Whisky Sour, interested.
“ Never heard of it myself.”

GALA NIGHT

281

Mr. Mulliner smiled indulgendy.

“ He is referring,” he explained, “ to a tonic
invented by my brother Wilfred, the well-known
analytical chemist. It is not often administered
to human beings, having been designed primarily
to encourage elephants in India to conduct
themselves with an easy nonchalance during the
tiger-hunts which are so popular in that country.
But occasionally human beings do partake of it,
with impressive results. I was telling the com-
pany here not long ago of the remarkable effect
it had on my nephew Augustine, the curate.”

“ It bucked him up ? ”

“It bucked him up very considerably. It
acted on his bishop, too, when he tried it, in a
similar manner. It is undoubtedly a most
efficient tonic, strong and invigorating.”

“ How is Augustine, by the way ? ” asked the
Sherry and Bitters.

“ Extremely well. I received a letter from
him only this morning. I am not sure if I told
you, but he is a vicar now, at Walsingford-below-
Ghiveney-on-Thames. A delightful resort, mostly
honeysuckle and apple-cheeked villagers.”

“ Anything been happening to him lately ? ”

“ It is strange that you should ask that,” said
Mr. Mulliner, finishing his hot Scotch and lemon
and rapping gendy on the table. “ In this letter
to which I allude he has quite an interesting story

K

282

MULLINER NIGHTS

to relate. It deals with the loves of Ronald
Bracy-Gascoigne and Hypatia Wace. Hypatia is
a school-friend of my nephew’s wif?. She has
been staying at the vicarage, nursing her through
a sharp attack of mumps. She is also the niece
and ward of Augustine’s superior of the Cloth,
the Bishop of Stortford.”

“ Was that the bishop who took the Buck-U-
Uppo ? ”

“ The same,” said Mr. Mulliner. '* As for
Ronald Bracy-Gascoigne, he is a young man of
independent means who resides in the neighbour-
hood. He is, of course, one of the Berkshire
Bracy-Gascoignes.”

“ Ronald,” said a Lemonade and Angostura
thoughtfully. “ Now, there’s a name I never
cared for.”

“ In that respect,” said Mr. Muiiiner, “ you
differ from Hypatia Wace. She thought it swell.
She loved Ronald Bracy-Gascoigne with all the
fervour of a young girl’s heart, and they were
provisionally engaged to be married. Provision-
ally, I say, because, before the firing-squad could
actually be assembled, it was necessary for the
young couple to obtain the consent of the Bishop
of Stortford. Mark that, gentlemen. Their en-
gagement was subject to the Bishop of Stortford’s
consent. This was the snag that protruded
jaggedly from the middle of the primrose path of

GALA NIGHT

285

their happiness, and for quite a while it seemed
as if Cupid must inevitably stub his toe on it.”

I will select as the point at which to begin my
tale, said Mr. Mulliner, a lovely evening in June,
when all Nature seemed to smile and the rays of
the setting sun fell like molten gold upon the
picturesque garden of the vicarage at Walsing-
ford-below-Chiveney-on-Thames. On a rustic
bench beneath a spreading elm, Hypatia Wace
and Ronald Bracy-Gascoigne watched the
shadows lengthening across the smooth lawn :
and to the girl there appeared something sym-
bolical and ominous about this creeping black-
ness. She shivered. To her, it was as if the sun-
bathed lawn represented her happiness and the
shadows the doom that was creeping upon it.

“ Are you doing anything at the moment,
Ronnie ? ” she asked.

“ Eh ? ” said Ronald Bracy-Gascoigne.
“ What ? Doing anything ? Oh, you mean
doing anything ? No, I’m not doing anything.”

“ Then kiss me,” cried Hypatia.

“ Right-ho,” said the young man. “ I see
what you mean. Rather a scheme. I will.”

He did so : and for some moments they clung
together in a close embrace. Then Ronald,
releasing her gently, began to slap himself
between the shoulder-blades.

MULLINER NIGHTS

284

“ Beetle or something down my back,” he
explained. “ Probably fell off the tree.”

“ Kiss me again,” whispered Hyj5atia.

“ In one second, old girl,” sziid Ronald. “ The
instant I’ve dealt with this beetle or something.
Would you mind just fetching me a whack on
about the fourth knob of the spine, reading from
the top downwards. I fancy that would make it
think a bit.”

Hypatia uttered a sharp exclamation.

“ Is this a time,” she cried passionately, “ to
talk of beetles ? ”

“ Well, you know, don’t you know,” said
Ronald, with a touch of apology in his voice,
“ they seem rather to force themselves on your
attention when they get down your back. I
daresay you’ve had the same experience yourself.
I don’t suppose in the ordinary way I mention
beetles half a dozen times a year, but ... I
should say the fifth knob would be about the
spot now. A good, sharp slosh with plenty of
follow-through ought to do the trick.”

Hypatia clenched her hands. She was seeth-
ing with that febrile exasperation which, since
the days of Eve, has come upon women who find
themselves linked to a cloth-head.

“ You poor sap,” she said tensely. “ You keep
babbling about beetles, and you don’t appear to
realize that, if you want to kiss me, you’d better

GALA NIGHT

28 j

cram in all the kissing you can now, while the
going is good. It doesn’t seem to have occurred
to you that after to-night you’re going to fade out
of the picture.”

“ Oh, I say, no ! Why ? ”

“ My Uncle Percy arrives this evening.”

“ The Bishop ? ”

“ Yes. And my Aunt Priscilla.”

“ And you think they won’t be any too fright-
fully keen on me ? ”

“ I know they won’t. I wrote and told them
we were engaged, and I had a letter this afternoon
saying you wouldn’t do.”

“ No, I say, really ? Oh, I say, dash it ! ”

“ ‘ Out of the question,’ my uncle said. And
underlined it.”

“ Not really ? Not absolutely underlined it ? ”
“ Yes. Twice. In very black ink.”

A cloud darkened the young man’s face. The
beetle had begun to try out a few tentative dance-
steps on the small of his back, but he ignored it.
A Tiller troupe of beetles could not have engaged
his attention now.

“ But what’s he got against me ? ”

“ Well, for one thing he has heard that you
were sent down from Oxford.”

“ But all the best men are. Look at What’s-
his-name. Chap who wrote poems. Shellac, or
some such name.”

286

MULLINER NIGHTS

“ And then he knows that you dance a lot.”

“ What’s wrong with dancing ? I’m not very
well up in these things, but didn’t David dance
before Saul ? Or am I thinking of a couple of
other fellows ? Anyway, I know that somebody
danced before somebody and was extremely
highly thought of in consequence.”

“ David . .

“ I’m not saying it was David, mind you. It
may quite easily have been Samuel.”

“ David . .

“ Or even Nimshi, the son of Bimshi, or some-
body like that.”

“ David, or Samuel, or Nimshi the son of
Bimshi,” said Hypatia, ** did not dance at the
Home From Home.”

Her illusion was to the latest of those frivolous
night-clubs which spring up from time to time on
the reaches of the Thames which are within a
comfortable distance from London. This one
stood some half a mile from the vicarage
gates.

“ Is that what the Bish is beefing about ? ”
demanded Ronald, genuinely astonished. “ You
don’t mean to tell me he really objects to the
Home From Home ? Why, a cathedral couldn’t
be more rigidly respectable. Does he realize
that the place hzis only been raided five times in
the whole course of its existence ? A few simple

GALA NIGHT 287

words of explanation will put all this right. I’ll
have a talk with the old boy.”

Hypatia shook her head.

“ No,” she said. “ It’s no use talking. He
has made his mind up. One of the things he
said in his letter was that, rather than counten-
ance my union to a worthless worldling like you,
he would gladly see me turned into a pillar of
salt like Lot’s wife. Genesis 19, 26. And
nothing could be fairer than that, could it?
So what I would suggest is that you start in
immediately to fold me in your arms and cover
my face with kisses. It’s the last chance you’ll
get.”

The young man was about to follow her
advice, for he could see that there was much in
what she said : but at this moment there came
from the direction of the house the sound of a
manly voice trolling the Psalm for the Second
Sunday after Septuagesima. And an instant
later their host, the Rev. Augustine Mulliner,
appeared in sight. He saw them and came
hurrying across the garden, leaping over the
flower-beds with extraordinary lissomness.

“ Amazing elasticity that bird has, both phys-
ical and mental,” said Ronald Bracy-Gascoigne,
eyeing Augustine, as he approached, with a
gloomy envy. “ How does he get that way ? ”

“ He was telling me last night,” said Hypatia.

288

MDLLINER NIGHTS

“ He has a tonic which he takes regularly. It is
called Mulliner’s Buck-U-Uppo, and acts directly
upon the red corpuscles.”

“ I wish he would give the Bish a swig of it,”
said Ronald moodily. A sudden light of hope
came into his eyes. “ I say, Hyp, old girl,” he
exclaimed. “ That’s rather a notion. Don’t
you think it’s rather a notion ? It looks to me
like something of an idea. If the Bish were to
dip his beak into the stuff, it might make him
take a brighter view of me.”

Hypatia, like all girls who intend to be good
wives, made it a practice to look on any sug-
gestions thrown out by her future lord and master
as fatuous and futile.

“ I never heard anything so silly,” she said.

“ Well, I wish you would try it. No harm in
trying it, what ? ”

“ Of course I shall do nothing of the kind.”

“ Well, I do think you might try it,” said
Ronald. “ I mean, try it, don’t you know.”

He could speak no further on the matter; for
now they were no longer alone. Augustine had
come up. His kindly face looked grave.

“ I say, Ronnie, old bloke,” said Augustine,

I don’t want to hurry you, but I think I ought
to inform you that the Bishes, male and female,
are even now on their way up from the station.
I should be popping, if I were you. The

GALA NIGHT 289

prudent man looketh well to his going. Prov-
erbs, 14, 15.”

“ All right,” said Ronald sombrely. “ I sup-
pose,” he added, turning to the girl, “ you
wouldn’t care to sneak out to-night and come
and have one final spot of shoe-slithering at the
Home From Home ? It’s a Gala Night. Might
be fun, what ? Give us a chance of saying
good-bye properly, and all that.”

“ I never heard anything so silly,” said
Hypatia, mechanically. “ Of course I’ll come.”

“ Right-ho. Meet you down the road about
twelve then,” said Ronald Bracy-Gascoigne.

He walked swiftly away, and presently was
lost to sight behind the shrubbery. Hypatia
turned with a choking sob, and Augustine took
her hand and squeezed it gently.

“ Cheer up, old onion,” he urged. “ Don’t
lose hope. Remember, many waters cannot
quench love. Song of Solomon, 8, 7.”

“ I don’t see what quenching love has got to
do with it,” said Hypatia peevishly. “ Our
trouble is that I’ve got an uncle complete with
gaiters and a hat with bootlaces on it who can’t
see Ronnie with a telescope.”

“ I know.’' Augustine nodded sympathetic-
ally. “ And my heart bleeds for you. I’ve been
through all this sort of thing myself. When I
was trying to marry Jane, I was stymied by a

290 MULLINER NIGHTS

father-in-law-to-be who had to be seen to be
believed. A chap, I assure you, who combined
chronic shortness of temper with the ability to
bend pokers round his biceps. Tact was what
won him over, and tact is what I propose to
employ in your case. I have an idea at the back
of my mind. I won’t tell you what it is, but you
may take it from me it’s the real tabasco.”

“ How kind you are, Augustine ! ” sighed the
girl.

“ It comes from mixing with Boy Scouts.
You may have noticed that the village is stiff
with them. But don’t you worry, old girl. I
owe you a lot for the way you’ve looked after
Jane these last weeks, and I’m going to see you
through. If I can’t fix up your little affair. I’ll
eat my Hymns Ancient and Modern. And
uncooked at that.”

And with these brave words Augustine Mulliner
turned two hand-springs, vaulted over the rustic
bench, and went about his duties in the parish.

Augustine was rather relieved, when he came
down to dinner that night, to find that Hypatia
was not to be among those present. The girl was
taking her meal on a tray with Jane, his wife, in
the invalid’s bedroom, and he was consequently
able to embark with freedom on the discussion of
her affairs. As soon as the servants had left the

GALA NIGHT 291

room, accordingly he addressed himself to the
task.

“ Now listen, you two dear good souls,” he
said. “ What I want to talk to you about, now
that we are alone, is this business of Hypatia and
Ronald Bracy-Gascoigne.”

The Lady Bishopess pursed her lips, displezised.
She was a woman of ample and majestic build.
A friend of Augustine’s, who had been attached
to the Tank Corps during the War, had once
said that he knew nothing that brought the old
days back more vividly than the sight of her.
All she needed, he maintained, was a steering-
wheel and a couple of machine-guns, and you
could have moved her up into any Front Line
and no questions asked.

“ Please, Mr. Mulliner ! ” she said coldly.

Augustine was not to be deterred. Like all
the Mulliners, he was at heart a man of reckless
courage.

“ They tell me you are thinking of bunging a
spanner into the works,” he said. “ Not true, I
hope ? ”

“ Quite true, Mr. Mulliner. Am I not right,
Percy ? ”

“ Quite,” said the Bishop.

“ We have made careful enquiries about the
young man, and are satisfied that he is entirely
unsuitable.”

MULLINER NIGHTS

29Z

“ Would you say that ? ” said Augustine. “ A
pretty good egg, I’ve always found him. What’s
your main objection to the poor lizard ? ”

The Lady Bishopess shivered.

“ We learn that he is frequently to be seen
dancing at an advanced hour, not only in gilded
London night-clubs but even in what should be
the purer atmosphere of Walsingford-below-
Chiveney-on-Thames. There is a resort in this
neighbourhood known, I believe, as the Home
From Home.”

“ Yes, just down the road,” said Augustine.
“ It’s a Gala Night to-night, if you cared to
look in. Fancy dress optional.”

“ I understand that he is to be seen there almost
nightly. Now, against dancing qua dancing,”
proceeded the Lady Bishopess, “ I have nothing
to say. Properly conducted, it is a pleasing and
innocuous pastime. In my own younger days I
jjiyself was no mean exponent of the polka, the
schottische and the Roger de Coverley. Indeed,
it was at a Dance in Aid of the Distressed
Daughters of Clergymen of the Church of
England Relief Fund that I first met my hus-
band.”

“ Really ? ” said Augustine. “ Well, cheerio ! ”
he said, draining his glass of port.

“ But dancing, as the term is understood
nowadays, is another matter. I have no doubt

GALA NIGHT

295

that what you call a Gala Night would prove, on
inspection, to be little less than one of those
orgies where perfect strangers of both sexes
unblushingly throw coloured celluloid balls at
one another and in other ways behave in a
manner more suitable to the Cities of the Plain
than to our dear England. No, Mr. Mulliner, if
this young man Ronald Bracy-Gascoigne is in
the habit of frequenting places of the type of the
Home From Home, he is not a fit mate for a pure
young girl like my niece Hypatia. Am I not
correct, Percy ? ”

“ Perfectly correct, my dear.”

“ Oh, right-ho, then,” said Augustine philoso-
phically, and turned the conversation to the
forthcoming Pan-Anglican synod.

Living in the country had given Augustine
Mulliner the excellent habit of going early to bed.
He had a sermon to compose on the morrow, and
in order to be fresh and at his best in the morning
he retired shortly before eleven. And, as he had
anticipated an unbroken eight hours of refreshing
sleep, it was with no little annoyance that he
became aware, towards midnight, of a hand on
his shoulder, shaking him. Opening his eyes,
he found that the light had been switched on and
that the Bishop of Stortford was standing at his
bedside.

MULLINER NIGHTS

294

“ Hullo ! ” said Augustine. “ Anything
wrong ? ”

The Bishop smiled genially, and hummed a
bar or two of the hymn for those of riper years at
sea. He was plainly in excellent spirits.

“ Nothing, my dear fellow,” he replied. “ In
fact, very much the reverse. How are you,
Mulliner ? ”

“ I feel fine, Bish.”

“ I’ll bet you two chasubles to a hassock you
don’t feel as fine as I do,” said the Bishop. “ It
must be something in the air of this place. I
haven’t felt like this since Boat Race Night of the
year 1893. Wow ! ” he continued. “ Whoopee !
How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy
tabernacles, O Israel ! Numbers, 44, 5.” And,
gripping the rail of the bed, he endeavoured to
balance himself on his hands with his feet in the
air.

Augustine looked at him with growing concern.
He could not rid himself of a curious feeling that
there was something sinister behind this ebul-
lience. Often before, he had seen his guest in a
mood of dignified animation, for the robust
cheerfulness of the other’s outlook was famous in
ecclesiastical circles. But here, surely, was some-
thing more than dignified animation.

“ Yes,” proceeded the Bishop, completing his
gymnastics and sitting down on the bed, “ I feel

GALA NIGHT

295

like a iighting-cock, Mulliner. I am full of
beans. And the idea of wasting the golden
hours of the night in bed seemed so silly that I
had to get up and look in on you for a chat.
Now, this is what I want to speak to you about,
my dear fellow. I wonder if you recollect
writing to me — round about Epiphany, it would
have been — to tell me of the hit you made in the
Boy Scouts pantomime here ? You played Sind-
bad the Sailor, if I am not mistaken ? ”

“ That’s right.”

“ Well, what I came here to ask, my dear
Mulliner, was this. Can you, by any chance, lay
your hand on that Sindbad costume ? I want to
borrow it, if I may.”

“ What for ? ”

“ Never mind what for, Mulliner. Sufficient
for you to know that motives of the soundest
churchmanship render it essential for me to have
that suit.’^

“ Very well, Bish. I’ll find it for you to-
morrow.”

“ To-morrow will not do. This dilatory spirit
of putting things off, this sluggish attitude of
laissez-faire and procrastination,” said the Bishop,
frowning, “ are scarcely what I expected to find
in you, Mulliner. But there,” he added, more
kindly, “ let us say no more. Just dig up that
Sindbad costume and look slippy about it, and

MULLINER NIGHTS

296

we will forget the whole matter. What does it
look like ? ”

“ Just an ordinary sailor-suit, Bish.”

“ Excellent. Some species of head-gear goes
with it, no doubt ? ”

“ A cap with H.M.S. Blotto on the band.”

“ Admirable. Then, my dear fellow,” said
the Bishop, beaming, “ if you will just let me have
it, I will trouble you no further to-night. Your
day’s toil in the vineyard has earned repose.
The sleep of the labouring man is sweet. Ecclesi-
astes, 5, 12.”

As the door closed behind his guest, Augustine
was conscious of a definite uneasiness. Only
once before had he seen his spiritual superior in
quite this exalted condition. That had been two
years ago, when they had gone down to Har-
chester College to unveil the statue of Lord
Kernel of Hempstead. On that occasion, he
recollected, the Bishop, under the influence of
an overdose of Buck-U-Uppo, had not been
content with unveiling the statue. He had gone
out in the small hours of the night and painted it
pink. Augustine could still recall the surge of
emotion which had come upon him when,
leaning out of the window, he had observed the
prelate climbing up the waterspout on his way
back to his room. And he still remembered the
sorrowful pity with which he had listened to the

GALA NIGHT

297

Other’s lame explanation that he was a cat
belonging to the cook.

Sleep, in the present circumstances, was out of
the question. With a pensive sigh, Augustine
slipped on a dressing-gown and went downstairs
to his study. It would ease his mind, he thought,
to do a little work on that sermon of his.

Augustine’s study was on the ground floor,
looking on to the garden. It was a lovely night,
and he opened the French windows, the better to
enjoy the soothing scents of the flowers beyond.
Then, seating himself at his desk, he began to
work.

The task of composing a sermon which should
practically make sense and yet not be above the
heads of his rustic flock was always one that
caused Augustine Mulliner to concentrate tensely.
Soon he was lost in his labour and oblivious to
everything but the problem of how to find a word
of one syllable that meant Supralapsarianism. A
glaze of preoccupation had come over his eyes,
and the tip of his tongue, protruding from the
left corner of his mouth, revolved in slow circles.

From this waking trance he emerged slowly to
the realization that somebody was speaking his
name and that he was no longer alone in the
room.

Seated in his arm-chair, her lithe young body

MULLINER NIGHTS

298

wrapped in a green dressing-gown, was Hypatia
Wace.

“ Hullo ! ” said Augustine, storing. “ You
here ? ”

“ Hullo,” said Hypatia. “ Yes, I’m here.”

“ I thought you had gone to the Home From
Home to meet Ronald.”

Hypatia shook her head.

“ We never made it,” she said. “ Ronnie rang
up to say that he had had a private tip that the
place was to be raided to-night. So we thought
it wasn’t safe to start anything,”

“ Quite right,” said Augustine approvingly.
“ Prudence first. Whatsoever thou takest in
hand, remember the end and thou shalt never do
amiss. Ecclesiastes, 7, 36,”

Hypatia dabbed at her eyes with her handker-
chief.

“ I couldn’t sleep, and. I saw the light, so I
came down. I’m so miserable, Augustine.”

“ About this Ronnie business ? ”

“ Yes.”

“ There, there. Everything’s going to be
hotsy-totsy.”

“ I don’t see how you make that out. Have
you heard Uncle Percy and Aunt Priscilla talk
about Ronnie ? They couldn’t be more off the
poor, unfortunate fish if he were the Scarlet
Woman of Babylon.”

GALA NIGHT

299

" I know. I know. But, as I hinted this
afternoon, I have a little plan. I have been
giving your case a good deal of thought, and I
think you will agree with me that it is your Aunt
Priscilla who is the real trouble. Sweeten her,
and the Bish will follow her lead. What she
thinks to-day, he always thinks to-morrow. In
other words, if we can win her over, he will give
his consent in a minute. Am I wrong or am I
right ? ”

Hypatia nodded.

“ Yes,” she said. “ That’s right, as far as it
goes. Uncle Percy always does what Aunt
Priscilla tells him to. But how are you going to
sweeten her ? ”

“ With Mulliner’s Buck-U-Uppo. You re-
member how often I have spoken to you of the
properties of that admirable tonic. It changes
the whole mental outlook like magic. We have
only to slip a few drops into your Aunt Priscilla’s
hot milk to-morrow night, and you will be
amazed at the results.”

“ You recdly guarantee that ? ”

“ Absolutely.”

“ Then that’s fine,” said the girl, brightening
visibly, “ because that’s exactly what I did this
evening. Ronnie was suggesting it when you
came up this afternoon, and I thought I might as
well try it. I found the bottle in the cupboard in

300 MULLINER NIGHTS

here, and I put some in Aunt Priscilla’s hot milk
and, in order to make a good job of it, some in
Uncle Percy’s toddy, too.”

An icy hand seemed to clutch at Augustine’s
heart. He began to understand the inwardness
of the recent scene in his bedroom.

“ How much ? ” he gasped.

“ Oh, not much,” said Hypatia. “ I didn’t
want to poison the dear old things. About a
tablespoonful apiece.”

A shuddering groan came raspingly from
Augustine’s lips.

“ Are you aware,” he said in a low, toneless
voice, “ that the medium dose for an aHult
elephant is one teaspoonful ? ”

“ No ! ”

“ Yes. The most fearful consequences result
from anything in the nature of an overdose.”
He groaned. “ No wonder the Bishop seemed a
little strange in his manner just npw.”

“ Did he seem strange in his m^ner ? ”

Augustine nodded dully.

“ He came into my room and did hand-springs
on the end of the bed and went away in my
Sindbad the Sailor suit.”

“ What did he want that for ? ”

Augustine shuddered.

“ I scarcely dare to face the thought,” he said,
“ but can he have been contemplating a visit to

GALA NIGHT

501

the Home From Home ? It is Gala Night,
remember.”

“ Why, of course,” said Hypatia. “ And that
must have been why Aunt Priscilla came to me
about an hour ago and asked me if I could lend
her my Columbine costume.”

“ She did ! ” cried Augustine.

“ Certainly she did. I couldn’t think what
she wanted it for. But now, of course, I see.”

Augustine uttered a moan that seemed to
come from the depths of his soul.

“ Run up to her room and see if she is still
there,” he said. “ If I’m not very much mis-
taken, we have sown the wind and we shall reap
the whirlwind. Hosea, 8, 7.”

The girl hurried away, and Augustine began to
pace the floor feverishly. He had completed five
laps and was beginning a sixth, when there was
a noise outside the French windows and a
sailorly form shot through and fell panting into
the arm-chair.'

“•Bish ! ” cried Augustine.

The Bishop waved a hand, to indicate that he
would be with him as soon as he had attended to
this matter of taking in a fresh supply of breath,
and continued to pant. Augustine watched
him, deeply concerned. There was a shop-
soiled look about his guest. Part of the Sindbad
costume had been torn away as if by some

MULLINER NIGHTS

302

irresistible force, and the hat was missing. His
worst fears appeared to have been realized.

“ Bish ! ” he cried. “ What has been hap-
pening ? ”

The Bishop sat up. He was breathing more
easily now, and a pleased, almost complacent,
look had come into his face.

“ Woof ! ” he said. “ Some binge ! ”

“ Tell me what happened,” pleaded Augustine,
agitated.

The Bishop reflected, arranging his facts in
chronological order.

“ Well,” he said, “ when I got to the Home
From Home, everybody was dancing. Nice
orchestra. Nice tune. Nice floor. So I danced,
too.”

“ You danced ? ”

“ Certainly I danced, Mulliner,” replied the
Bishop with a dignity that sat well upon him.
“ A hornpipe. I consider it the duty of the
higher clergy on these occasions to set an
example. You didn’t suppose I would go to a
place like the Home From Home to play soli-
taire ? Harmless relaxation is not forbidden, I
believe ? ”

“ But can you dance ? ”

“ Can I dance ? ” said the Bishop. “ Can I
dance, Mulliner ? Have you ever heard of
Nijinsky ? ”

GALA NIGHT

503

“ Yes.”

“ My stage name,” said the Bisliop.

Augustine swallowed tensely.

“ Who did you dance with ? ” he asked.

“ At first,” said the Bishop, “ I danced alone.
But then, most fortunately, my dear wife arrived,
looking perfectly charming in some sort pf filmy
material, and we danced together.”

“ But wasn’t she surprised to see you there ? ”

“ Not in the least. Why should she be ? ”

“ Oh, I don’t know.”

“ Then why did you put the question ? ”

“ I wasn’t thinking.”

“ Always think before you speak, Mulliner,”
said the Bishop reprovingly.

The door opened, and Hypatia hurried in.

“ She’s not ” She stopped. “ Uncle ! ”

she cried.

“ Ah, my dear,” said the Bishop. “ But I was
telling you, Mulliner. After we had been danc-
ing for some time, a most annoying thing
occurred. Just as we were enjoying ourselves —
everybody cutting up and having a good time
— who should come in but a lot of interfering
policemen. A most brusque and unpleasant
body of men. Inquisitive, too. One of them
kept asking me my name and address. But I
soon put a stop to all that sort of nonsense. I
plugged him in the eye.”

MULLINER NIGHTS

304

“ You plugged him in the eye ? ”

“ I plugged him in the eye, Mulliner. That’s
when I got this suit torn. The fellow was
annoying me intensely. He ignored my repeated
statement that I gave my name and address only
to my oldest and closest friends, and had the
audacity to clutch me by what I suppose a
costumier would describe as the slack of my
garment. Well, naturally I plugged him in the
eye. I come of a fighting line, Mulliner. My
ancestor. Bishop Odo, was famous in William the
Conqueror’s day for his work with the battle-axe.
So I biffed this bird. And did he take a toss ?
Ask me ! ” said the Bishop, chuckling contentedly.

Augustine and Hypatia exchanged glances.

“ But, uncle ” began Hypatia.

“ Don’t interrupt, my child,” said the Bishop.
“ I cannot marshal my thoughts if you persist in
interrupting. Where was I ? Ah, yes. Well,
then the already existing state of confusion grew
intensified. The whole tempo of the proceedings
became, as it were, quickened. Somebody
turned out the lights, and somebody else upset a
table and I decided to come away.” A pensive
look flitted over his face. “ I trust,” he said,
“ that my dear wife also contrived to leave with-
out undue inconvenience. The last I saw of her,
she was diving through one of the windows in a
manner which, I thought, showed considerable

GALA NIGHT

505

lissomness and resource. Ah, here she is, and
looking none the worse for her adventures. Come
in, my dear. I was just telling Hypatia and our
good host here of our little evening from home.”

The Lady Bishopess stood breathing heavily.
She was not in the best of training. She had the
appearance of a Tank which is missing on one
cylinder.

“ Save me, Percy,” she gasped.

“ Certainly, my dear,” said the Bishop cor-
dially. “ From what ? ”

In silence the Lady Bishopess pointed at the
window. Through it, like some figure of doom,
was striding a policeman. He, too, was breath-
ing in a laboured manner, like one touched in
the wind.

The Bishop drew himself up.

“ And what, pray,” he asked coldly, “ is the
meaning of this intrusion ? ”

“ Ah ! ” said the policeman.

He closed the windows and stood with his back
against them.

It seemed to Augustine that the moment had
arrived for a man of tact to take the situation in
hand.

“ Good evening, constable,” he said genially.
“ You appear to have been taking exercise. I
have no doubt that you would enjoy a little
refreshment.”

MULLINER NIGHTS

306

The policeman licked his lips, but did not speak.

“ I have an excellent tonic here in my cup-
board,” proceeded Augustine, “ and I think you
will find it most restorative. I will mix it with a
little seltzer.”

The policeman took the glass, but in a pre-
occupied manner. His attention was still riveted
on the Bishop and his consort.

“ Caught you, have I ? ” he said.

“ I fail to understand you, officer,” said the
Bishop frigidly.

“ I’ve been chasing her,” said the policeman,
pointing to the Lady Bishopess, “ a good mile it
must have been.”

“ Then you acted,” said the Bishop severely,
“ in a. most offensive and uncalled-for way. On
her physician’s recommendation, my dear wife
takes a short cross-country run each night be-
fore retiring to rest. Things have come to a
sorry pass if she cannot follow her doctor’s
orders without being pursued— I will use a
stronger word — chivvied — ^by the constabulary.”

“ And it was by her doctor’s orders that she
went to the Home From Home, eh ? ” said the
policeman keenly.

“ I shall be vastly surprised to learn,” said the
Bishop, “ that my dear wife has been anywhere
near the resort you riiention.”

“ And you were there, too. I saw you.”

GALA NIGHT

307

** Absurd ! ”

“ I saw you punch Constable Booker in the eye.”

“ Ridiculous ! ”

“ If you weren’t there,” said the policeman,
“ what are you doing wearing that sailor-suit ? ”

The Bishop raised his eyebrows.

“ I cannot permit my choice of costume,” he
said, “ arrived at — I need scarcely say — only
after much reflection and meditation, to be
criticized by a man who habitually goes about
in public in a blue uniform and a helmet. What,
may I enquire, is it that you object to in this
sailor-suit? There is nothing wrong, I venture
to believe, nothing degrading in a sailor-suit.
Many of England’s greatest men have worn
sailor-suits. Nelson . . . Admiral Beatty ”

“ And Arthur Prince,” said Hypatia.

“ And, as you say, Arthur Prince.”

The policeman was scowling darkly. As a
dialectician, he seemed to be feeling he was
outmatched. And yet, he appeared to be telling
himself, there must be some answer even to the
apparently unanswerable logic to which he had
just been listening. To assist thought, he raised
the glass of Buck-U-Uppo and seltzer in his hand,
and drained it at a draught.

And, as he did so, suddenly, abruptly, as breath
fades from steel, the scowl passed from his face,
and in its stead there appeared a smile of infinite

3o8 mulliner nights

kindliness and goodwill. He wiped his mous-
tache, and began to chuckle to himself, as at
some diverting memory.

“ Made me laugh, that did,” he said. “ When
old Booker went head over heels that time.
Don’t know when I’ve seen a nicer punch.
Clean, crisp. , . . Don’t suppose it travelled
more than six inches, did it ? I reckon you’ve
done a bit of boxing in your time, sir.”

At the sight of the constable’s smiling face, the
Bishop had relaxed the austerity of his demean-
our. He no longer looked like Savonarola
rebuking the sins of the people. He was his old
genial self once more.

“ Quite true, officer,” he said, beaming. “When
I was a somewhat younger man than I am at
oresent,* I won the Curates’ Open Heavy-weight
Championship two year** in succession. Some of
the ancient skill still lingers, it would seem.”

The policeman chuckled again^

“ I should say it does, sir. But,” he continued,
a look of annoyance coming into his face, “ what
all the fuss was about is more than I can say.
Our fat-headed Inspector says, ‘ You go and raid
that Home From Home, chaps, see?’ he says, and
so we went and done it. But my heart wasn’t in it,
no more was any of the other fellers’ hearts in it.
What’s wrong with a little rational enjoyment ?
That’s what I say. What’s wrong with it ? ”

GALA NIGHT

309

“ Precisely, officer.”

“ That’s what I say. What’s wrong with it ?
Let people enjoy themselves how they like is what
I say. And if the police come interfering — well,
punch them in the eye, I say, same as you did
Constable Booker. That’s what I say.”

“ Exactly,” said the Bishop. He turned to his
wife. “ A fellow of considerable intelligence,
this, my dear.”

“ I liked his face right from the beginning,”
said the Lady Bishopess. “ What is. your name,
officer ? ”

“ Smith, lady. But call me Cyril.”

“ Certainly,” said the Lady Bishopess. “ It
will be a pleasure to do so. I used to know
some Smiths in Lincolnshire years ago, Cyril.
I wonder if they were any relation.”

“ Maybe, lady. It’s a small world.”

“ Though, now I come to think of it, their
name was Robihson.”

“ Well, that’s life, lady, isn’t it ? ” said the
policeman.

“ That’s just about what it is, Cyril,” agreed the
Bishop. “ You never spoke a truer word.”

Into this love-feast, which threatened to become
more glutinous every moment, there cut the
cold voice of Hypatia Wace.

“ Well, I must say,” said Hypatia, “ that
you’re a nice lot ! ”

MULLINER NIGHTS

310

“ Who’s a nice lot, lady?” asked the policeman.

“ These two,” said Hypatia. , “ Are you
married, officer ? ”

“ No, lady. I’m just a solitary chip drifting
on the river of life.”

“ Well, anyway, I expect you know what it
feels like to be in love.”

“ Too true, lady.”

“ Well, I’m in love with Mr. Bracy-Gascoigne.
You’ve met him, probably. Wouldn’t you say
he was a person of the highest character ? ”

“ The whitest man I know, lady.”

“ Well, I want to marry him, and my uncle and
aunt here won’t let me, because they say he’s
worldly. Just because he goes out dancing.
And all .the while they are dancing the soles of
their shoes through. I don’t call it fair.”

She buried her face in her hands with a stifled
sob. The Bishop and his* wife looked at each
other in blank astonishment.

“ I don’t understand,” said the Bishop.

“ Nor I,” said the Lady Bishopess. “ My dear
child, what is all this about our not consenting
to your marriage with Mr. Bracy-Gascoigne ?
However did you get that idea into your head ?
Certainly, as far as I am concerned, you may
marry Mr. Bracy-Gascoigne. And I diink I
speak for my dear husband ? ”

“ Quite,” said the Bishop. “ Most decidedly.”

GALA NIGHT

3”

Hypatia uttered a cry of joy.

“ Good egg ! May I really ? ’*

“ Certainly you may. You have no objection,

Wl ? ”

“ None whatever, lady.”

)\ Hypatia’s face fell.

“ Oh, dear ! ” she said.

“ What’s the matter ? ”

“ It just struck me that I’ve got to wait hours
pd hours before I can tell him. Just think of
aving to wait hours and hours ! ”

(The Bishop laughed his jolly laugh.

! “ Why wait hours and hours, my dear ? No
I [me like the present.”

I “ But he’s gone to bed.”

“ Well, rout him out,” said the Bishop heartily.
Here is what I suggest that we should do. You
id I and Priscilla — and you, Cyril ? — ^will all
b down to his house and stand undt r his window
I pd shout.”

IJ “ Or throw gravel at the window,” suggested
Re Lady Bishopess.

Certainly, my dear, if you prefer it.”

And when he sticks his head out,” said the
jliceman, “ how would it be to have the garden
nose handy and squirt him ? Cause a lot of fun

jund laughter, that would.”

^ My dear Cyril,” said the Bishop, “ you think
if everything. I shall certainly use any influence

5IZ MULUNER NIGHTS

I may possess with the authorities to have yoh
promoted to a rank where^ your remarkable
talents will enjoy greater scope. Gome, let is
be going. You will accompany us, my d6'a|
Mulliner ? ”

Augusime shook his head.

“ Sermon to write, Bish.”

“ Just as you say, Mulliner. Then if you wil
be so good as to leave the window open, my dear
fellow, we shall be able to return to our beds *•
the conclusion of our little errand of good\^
without di curbing the domestic staff.” '

“ Right-ho, Bish.”

“ Thei' for the p. .cat, pip-pip, Mulliner.”

“ Toudle-oo, Bish,” said Augustine.

He took up his pen and resumed his compos.’
tion. Out in the sv. 'cnted night ne coul
hear the four vol cs dying away in the distance
They seemer'. be singing an old English par
song. He smiled benevolently.

“ A merry heart doeth good like a medicin'
Proverbs 17, 22,” murmureJ Augustine.

THE END